Misadventures in SpaceTime
by P R Kennedy
Summary: Have you ever screwed up so badly you needed to skip town for a few? No? Well, poor Helmuth von Trotha has, and he's done more than just skip town. Now stuck in a situation one would hardly believe, our hero - and that's a light term for him - must try and get back to where he once belonged. **BEING REWRITTEN**
1. Kapitel-I Ein eigensinniges Zuhause

**Well, here we are. A new fic after I haven't touched my old ones since like, 2015ish. Oof, am I sorry. Life just likes to come up and either punch you in the dick, or give you writers block for a couple years.**

 **Still, at least that's given me the time to start world building, and this new fic is taking – in part – in that new world: Terra Solis. A world of my own building, with some parts mixed around a bit. I originally was a part of region on Nationstates . Net – great website by the way, you should all check it out if you like geo, socio-economic, political worldbuilding/roleplay – where my homegrown nation of Yytuskia really got my brain juices flowing. And now, seven years after I first wrote about her, I'm putting the state to e-paper.**

 **And while this and the next chapter are going to be basically introduction chapters to the locations and characters of the** ** _Grosser Krater Institut_** **, I plan on both writing an actual full-length novel using this world, and this fic – which'll be going to the F/GO universe. So, buckle in for that shenanigan-filled ride.**

 **The final word count before this Author's Note was 7714 words, including those page breaks, and I ultimately finished this chapter around 0117 AM on the 2** **nd** **of October. Hope you all enjoy, leave a follow and a comment if you want more, and I could always use constructive criticism.**

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"What did you expect?" – Talking

'A war like no other?' – Thought

" _Der Teufel selbst_?" – Very bad Google Translate, or emphasis on speech

' _Or just a bad dream?_ ' – Written word

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Helmuth von Trotha awoke with two things: A splitting headache/hangover the likes he had never experienced in his twenty-three years alive on Terra, and a surprising feeling of someone else's flesh upon his own – which meant he was naked. Now, von Trotha was what one could call a womanizer, and a heavy drinker. That did not mean, however, that he was disrespectful to the fairer sex, quite the opposite, he was a polite young man. And while most in his position – one of relative power, and wealth – would've been using it to force girls either through money or whatnot, Lady von Trotha managed to install into Helmut a profound respect for women at a young age.

So, when he felt at least two women pressed up on either side of his naked torso, he was both alert and tense at the same time. One of the two problems that were plaguing him at this point in time was the fact that he couldn't remember anything that had happened last night past his thirteenth or fourteenth shot of schnapps, and he had two possibly angry coworkers on his hands. Except, in the case that these two beautiful ladies snuggled up to either side of him weren't related to work, then that was one less problem. The easiest explanation could have been that he had gone out clubbing last night, to one of Wintermünster's many nightclubs in the _Rotlichtviertel_ – the red-light district in the city's East End – and had somehow managed to seduce two women while blackout drunk. And he would be right, he did manage to do that.

The women he seduced, on the other hand, well. That's where the problem comes in.

See, 21-year-old Helmuth von Trotha was the third child of a family of seven, the proverbial middle child. And the von Trotha family were a well-respected clan of the Wintermünster, donating to charities, publicly sitting on the city council, helping businesses in town in tough times, and helping keep troubled youths off the street and into better homes. Of course, there was the big secret that permeated around a family with such influence and power, which was no secret at all honestly. Rumors circulated that the von Trotha's vast wealth came through both legal and (mostly) illegal means – rumors that were true, mind you. The von Trotha family was involved in things ranging from illicit drugs, firearms smuggling, underground gambling and fighting rings, prostitution, and money laundering, to name a few. The ports of both nearby Kaiserburg and Wintermünster itself were owned and operated by the von Trotha family company, von Trotha Shipping, allowing easy access to the sea for shipping illicit goods in and out of the country.

But they weren't the end all, be all power in Wintermünster's underground, rather, a member of the ' _T_ _rifecta_ '. Two other crime families called Wintermünster home, besides the von Trotha's: the Leibovitz and the Dominicus families respectively. Both the Leibovitz and the Dominicus families held about the same amount of power in the Wintermünster area, alongside the von Trotha's, due in no part to the three families' standings with each other. For the past three decades, the Trifecta held an uneasy alliance with each other, keeping to their respective parts of Wintermünster and using these combined empires to further boost their financial gains. Lately, however, there has been growing tensions between both the Dominicus and the von Trotha families, which have been contained under the Leibovitz's steady hand.

See, the Leibovitz's, the oldest family in the area, had held the city's crime families under strict guidelines and rules after the Thirteen Years War ended in 1955. Back then, several dozen families had been trying to muscle into each other's districts, almost starting a bloody gang war that had threatened to envelop the city. The Leibovitz's, seeing this, called a referendum between the major and minor crime families in Wintermünster, where they effectively spilt the city and nearby Kaiserburg and Eichenwald between the fourteen crime groups. By the end of 2029, however, there remained only the von Trotha's, the Dominicus, and the Leibovitz families. And with the distrust and hate between the von Trotha's and the Dominicus families, that's where the problem came from for our young Helmuth.

The two women cuddled up on either side of our hero – and that name in-of-itself is not technically what we should call him, but so be it – were the daughters of the current Dominicus' head, Angelina and Sophia. Now for a normal person, this would probably just land the person who was dating them in some hot water with the mob, but as stated before, Helmuth was a von Trotha. Having bedded the Dominicus twins now put him in the worst possible scenario. If word got out that the third-in-line heir to the von Trotha's had managed to seduce the daughters of the Dominicus head, there was a decent chance that stuff would fall apart for the Trifecta. He needed to leave, as soon as possible, before either girl woke up. Sadly, in his just awoken state, he did not recognize the room – or the house, or the women, for that matter – that he was currently snuggled in.

In military terms, he was a soldier far behind enemy lines.

In his dear friend Fredrich's terms: Son you done fucked up and need to get the fuck out of there, NOW.

Of course, with Helmuth lacking key information, he was in no capacity to act on the age-old tactic of GTFOing. Rather, he continued to relax in half-awakened bliss cuddled between the twins. He remained that way until a soft rapping came upon the door.

Eyes opened as a maid entered the room, and Helmuth's head arose from the pillows. Silver-blue eyes made direct contact with the maid's own hazelnut colours, fear meeting startled, before the maid slowly exited the room. Helmuth let a breath he hadn't know he was holding out in a sigh.

"You have about five to ten minutes, depending on daddy's responsiveness this early," came a sultry voice on his left.

20-year-old Sophia Dominicus had apparently awoken from her slumber by Helmuth's movements, and was casting a smoldering leer at him. Helmuth returned the leer with a look of confusion, before it quickly morphed to fear.

"Sophia Dominicus…?" He stuttered, paling at her nod. "Then that means that…"

"My daddy hates your daddy. And you're running out of time before he shows up~"

Even more blood drained from Helmuth's face, before he bolted from the bed, racing to where his foggy memories supplied where his clothes were the night before. He had managed to secure his pants on his legs properly, before an angry yell tore through the building. This only further increased Helmuth's speed, pulling his tee shirt quickly over his head and rushing for the window.

"Three stories up stud," Sophia commented, having moved to her vanity, "have fun running from daddy with a broken leg."

Cursing, Helmuth changed his direction, opting to try his luck outrunning the Elder Dominicus out of his own home. Shoving his way past a butler outside the twin's room – whom had been holding cleaning supplies (possibly for his corpse) – he charged towards the main stairwell. The third-floor connected to the second by two small staircases to the large main one connecting the first and second-floors, so by the time his feet hit the second-floor landing, his luck had run out. A door to the left side of the third-floor landing burst open, revealing the elderly 61-year-old Roma Vito Dominicus in his sleeping clothes, brandishing a double-barreled shotgun. And was he pissed.

"WHERE'S THE SONAVBITCH WHO SLEPT WITH MY DAUGHTERS?!"

Oh yeah, super pissed.

The old man's yell gave Helmuth pause, slowly forcing himself to turn to look at the irate family head with a look of fear. The man's face was a puce-purple-red blend, and the way he was gripping the Rothenberg twelve-gauge side-by-side made Helmuth worry. Worry turned to actual fear as the angry father turned his gaze past his daughters' room to Helmuth, narrowing on contact.

"You…" he hissed, grinding teeth together at the sight of our young hero. "Defiler, seducer! How dare you, you monkey-headed scum sucker! To do such a thing to my own flesh and blood! DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM!? I'LL KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE HERE!"

Helmuth didn't hesitate, diving down the flight of stairs to the first floor as soon as Roma leveled the gun at him.

The blast – and subsequent buckshot scatter – mostly impacted where he had been standing less than a second ago. However, pain laced up and across his spine, as several pellets undoubtedly cut scores across his back, causing him to hiss in pain. He grunted in even more pain as he landed on the first floor, scrambling behind an ornate pillar as the next barrel's salvo impacted the marble pillar. He couldn't afford to pause here, as the clack of the shotgun being broken open echoed throughout the entrance hall. He darted for the front door, barreling past both the stunned mobster guards who entered to protect the family, and their Don's screams of rage at the fleeing Helmuth.

Fleeing as fast as he could, Helmuth broke across the front lawn of the Dominicus estate, ducking as zipping, whistling noises that could only be small arms fire whizzed past him. Glancing backwards, he saw Don Dominicus had exited the house, finally having loaded his weapon and had taken aim at Helmuth. Grimacing, von Trotha hit the dirt as both barrels of the Rothenberg erupted in fire, their deadly pellets whizzing harmlessly above.

And thankfully – for Helmuth – smashing the latch on the front gates of the estate, allowing Helmuth a free run to the street rather than having to climb the damned thing.

Climbing to his feet and resuming his escape as small-caliber bullets cracked into the ground around him, Helmuth then got his second stroke of luck that morning. A familiar car screeched to a halt outside of the now open gate, the passenger-side door hissing open as it swung upwards. Michael Julius Reinecker, one of Helmuth's long-time friends, grinned at him, steadily revving the engine as he dove into the passenger's seat, hissing once more in pain from his grazed back.

"Go, damnit! Go!" he yelled, pulling his legs into the Bayer-Fritsch sports car, reaching for the gullwing door's pull handle.

As soon as the first syllable left his mouth, Michael lifted his foot off the clutch, the car lurching forward as the two peeled away from the estate, bullets clanging of the stainless-steel body panels. The car tore off into the morning dawn of the Wintermünster hills, the driver and passenger grinning.

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"Mother fucker…" Helmuth hissed as Michael dabbed rubbing alcohol on the buckshot cuts that were laced across his back.

"No offence," Michael returned with a chuckle, earning another hiss from Helmuth as he dabbed more rubbing alcohol on his friend's wounds. "But as hot as your mum is at her age, you know I'm more into guys Helmuth."

"Mm."

The two were sitting in one of the unused garages at the von Trotha estate, Michael tending to Helmuth's wounds after their impromptu escape from the Dominicus estate.

"You still didn't explain how you knew I'd be there, by the way," Helmuth stated.

"Oh, that's simple," Michael replied with yet another chuckle, "I drove the three of you back there after you got shitfaced and started hitting on them!"

Helmuth threw an incredulous look towards Michael.

"I'm sorry, what? You drove us – Ok, you know what?" He muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Start from the beginning. We got to the Submariner, we started ordering drinks, and then…?"

"And then you kept drinking," Michael supplied, putting the rubbing alcohol in favour of a roll of gauze, which he steadily began to wrap around Helmuth's torso. "In fact, it's funny. You managed to down about two whole bottles of schnapps, three of vodka, and at least a fifth of a whiskey before the bartender cut you off. You then proceeded to get down on the dance floor, dancing your ass off. It was rather funny from my perspective, honestly."

"Ha ha ha, yeah, I bet it was, me making a fool of myself." Helmuth sarcastically responded. "And then what?"

"Well, after you spent twenty minutes on the floor, a couple girls started grinding up on you, and I got bored and started looking for somebody to flirt with myself."

Helmuth gave Michael a deadpan stare, prompting Michael to shrug.

"What? there were good looking guys there, some of which were looking for a good time too don't'cha know?~"

"Get on with it."

"Right, so I lost you for a bit, but after about a half hour or so, you came up to me with these two girls hanging off your arms, the dumbest fucking look on your face. You came up to me with them, and just waggled your eyebrows and slurred out what I think was ' _twins Mikey, twins!_ '. So of course, how could I not help a bro out, right?"

Helmuth sighed, shaking his head. "And then, you drove us to the Dominicus estate, which should've raised a few dozen red flags, and yet you allowed me to go into the dragon's den. Drunk off my ass, mind you. After which, I had possibly glorious sex with two of the hottest twins in the immediate vicinity. All of which I cannot remember." Helmuth finished, shaking his head in sadness.

Michael only scratched his chin. "To be fair, I did warn you of the possible outcome, you going in there, but you brushed me off."

This earned a groan from Helmuth, who slowly began to pull his tee shirt back over his head. "The next time I say something stupid like that Mike, bloody slap me across the face, twins or not."

Michael grinned stupidly, throwing up a mock salute at his long-time friend. " _Jawohl mein Leutnant_!"

It was a long-running joke between Helmuth's groups of friends that he could've been a _leutnant_ – a Lieutenant – in the armed forces after he managed to impress several higher-ups during his tenure during his compulsory military service in his late teens. He declined, however, and went into the tertiary education system – college, in other words – for social economics. That still didn't mean that his friends wouldn't tease him constantly for it however.

Running a hand through his hair, Helmuth let loose another groan as he rolled his shoulders, dull pain lancing up his back as he did so.

"So now what Helmuth?" Michael asked quietly, putting the first aid box back into the trunk of his car. "What're your plans?"

Helmuth looked over in confusion. "What'd'ya mean Mike?"

Michael shrugged, "Well, you've just painted a large target on your back, even if the old man didn't recognize you. You're going to draw attention to yourself, even without doing so. Because now each and every single Dominicus family mobby will looking for you to gain favour with the old man. That's not even counting what'll happen once YOUR old man finds out Helmuth."

Helmuth, who had at this point had gotten up from his seated position, froze in fear. He slowly turned his head towards Michael, fear sparked within his eyes. In truth, Helmuth had completely forgotten about his own father in all the excitement of fleeing for his life. If his father, Adolf von Trotha, found out then –

A cough came from the door, signalling the arrival of said father, glancing at the two men with an amused – but slightly annoyed – look on his face.

Adolf von Trotha was not a physically imposing man; standing at roughly 5'4", he was shorter than both his son and Michael, but standing on the steps to the garage gave him an extra few inches to be able to stare at his third son in the eyes.

"I'm glad I caught the two of you here," came his murmur, barely reaching the duo's ears, "Glad to have done so before your dearest mother did. She's been worried sick. As have I. But, when I hear that someone had managed to piss off Dominicus to such a degree that he's put out a thousand dollar hit on the head of poor, sorry son of a bitch who slept with his daughters, well, I worry just a bit sicker."

"Father, I –"

"Cut the bullshit for now Helmuth, I'm talking." Adolf cut his son off, walking over to where Michael's sportscar and the two boys were standing.

" _Herr_ von Trotha please allow me to explain–" Michael tried to start, only to squeak as the head of the von Trotha family leveled his glare at the poor man.

"Same goes for you Michael. I love you like another son, but right now I need to lay down the hammer. Get your ass home, your parents are wondering where you are, and they're worried to death." Adolf supplied, turning his gaze back to Helmuth.

"I – yessir."

Defeated, Michael cast a look at Helmuth, shrugging as if to say 'sorry man, you're on your own now' before climbing into his car and leaving the garage for home.

Adolf sighed, making his way over to the workbench where Helmuth was now putting away the medical supplies that had been used. Stopping just a few feet away from his son, Adolf watched as Helmuth pulled his shirt back on over his head, before turning towards his father. It was time to get down to business.

"Good," Adolf muttered, staring his son down with anger, "Now. What in the goddamned fuck was going through your head son? You know what the Dominicus family is like, they're a bunch of no-good, bigoted, rotten sheepskins that don't care nothing about the people in this city. For the entirety of the time they've lived in this town, they've been trying to undermine it from both the city and the Families. Hell, they've worked with the fascists, and they're still working with them back in their damned homeland! You know they're enemy number one on the streets, so why, oh why did you decide that the best thing to do was piss off the most volatile man in the city by sleeping with his daughters?!"

Helmuth only looked away, gathering up his things that had been strew about the garage when he first arrived with Michael. The young man then slowly deposited himself on the hood of his own car in the garage, looking at his father under half-lidded eyes. The silence grew within the room for a pregnant moment, before the elder von Trotha broke it.

"I don't know what to do with you Helmuth," Adolf began slowly, calming down slightly as he watched his son hissing with pain as he bent to grab his wallet off the floor, "you've shown no interest in the family, nor the business. You've gone to college, yes, but now you're just back home doing nothing. You aren't even interested in military service. Every night you go out, get yourself shitfaced drunk, and come back home only to do it all over again the next night. You're worrying your mother to death, and your brothers and sisters. So please, tell me. What am I supposed to do with you?"

"Let me be." Replied Helmuth, glaring at his father as he crossed his arms. "That's what I asked you after the funeral, and yet you still hound me after the fact. I asked you to let me be, let me figure out what my life will be through my choices, but no. You had to continue to judge me, judge what I wanted to do, pushed me to learn about the family, the profession," he hissed.

"Was it any surprise to you that when my world ended, that I wouldn't be the same starry-eyed kid? Huh? That I would want nothing to do with this your profession? That I would try and cope with my issues? And your response was to try and push harder, to use her as a stepping off point to sharpen my anger into a dagger to stab into the sides of your enemies. So of course, I would stray father from your ideal father, for it is not mine."

Adolf grimaced in response. Truthfully, in his attempt to bring his son out of his depression, he might have laid it on a bit thick and possibly even had alienated his third son even more so than before.

"You know I didn't want that for you Helmuth," came Adolf's reply, "I pushed you towards the family business in hopes you'd connect with your brothers. I didn't mean for it to push you away, you should know that. I meant it as a way to bond with your older brothers and myself. Your time at home was meant to foster relations with your sisters as well, and I am thankful that that went through without any issues."

Helmuth scoffed. "As if I'd have any issues with my sisters. It was those two dickheads that were causing me issues. I didn't want to work for the family, and yet you pushed me for that anyways. I didn't want my hands coated in blood for your money, and yet…"

"I know that now, and I'm sorry Helmuth. I didn't want you to take over like Nicholas is going to, as a bruiser. I wanted you somewhere I could trust you to do well in, like the finances of the business." Adolf supplied, sighing to himself and shaking his head. "I wanted security for you in the future, that's all, both financial and safety-wise. And now you've – unwittingly – made yourself public enemy number one in the eyes of the Dominicus family. Your mother and I wanted nothing more than to protect you, and in that I have failed. I have little choices now."

Here, the elder von Trotha paused, sagging in his stance and seeming to age a couple more years. In truth, Helmuth knew that his father loved all five of his children equally, and wanted nothing more than the best for all of them, but between the family business, his wife, his children, and all the political _Bullenmist_ he had to put up with on a daily basis, sometimes things fell through the cracks. And if that happened to be Helmuth and his life rather than his younger sisters, or the business itself, then Helmuth supposed that some faults could be forgiven. At the moment however, he was still nursing off that hangover – and wound – from earlier in the day, so forgiveness wouldn't exactly come to his old man at just this exact second.

And then his father perked up, as if he suddenly remembered something, and started patting himself down as he looked back up at his son.

"You know son, I'm lucky I have this to give to you, what with all the issues that are going to be popping up here now." Adolf finished with a wiry grin, reaching into his pants pocket.

Helmuth furrowed his brows at this, as he had been expecting the argument to continue for much longer than this. His eyes then narrowed as his father withdrew a letter-envelope, handing it off to him.

The letter-envelope was nothing special, a plain old vanilla-coloured bill with a _Bundesstadt_ stamp in the top left corner. The only other markings on the damned thing was a type-cast sender stating that the sender had been from one of the two semi-autonomous in the country: _Grosser Krater Institut_.

Adolf merely smiled a devilish smile at his son – like he was the cat that had caught the canary. "I got a job offer from an old friend of mine, a secretary position at the most prestigious research facility this country has, and I figured you need to get out of town for a bit, eh?"

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Science was a logistical, logical, and methodical type of work. It was based on the fundamentals of the universe, the laws and orders that prevailed existence itself. None of that really mattered to _Unterwachoffizier_ Kristopher Karson, a former _soldat_ of the army, now employed as nothing more than a glorified security guard. Little more than stand at post, watch for irregularities, switch when shift ends, and take care of himself before repeating it all the next day. He was barely doing anything but going through the paces.

'Maybe I should get a new hobby', the almost seven-foot tall man mused to himself.

At almost seven feet – he was actually somewhere between six feet and a half, and six feet and three quarters – Karson easily topped out at the tallest guard in the entirety of GKI's _Schutztruppen_. He could even boast that he was the tallest guy in a fifty-kilometer radius as no-one in the residential area surrounding the crater research facility could reach his height. That is, if he were a boasting man.

Compared to other guards in the _Schutztruppen_ , the younger and/or green ones, Karson was some sort of relic. Having served the _Heer_ – Yytuskia's army – during the Talion-Yytuskian Conflict a year and a half ago, Karson was one of a dozen guards on the base that had seen military combat. This put the 32-year-old into what the Greens at the base called " _die alte Rasse_ " – "the Old Breed". Former _soldaten_ who had seen combat, were wounded in some way because of it, and were offered jobs at GKI after being discharged by the _Heer_.

Not only that Karson was an _alte Rasse_ , he also was the most imposing out of the guards and was usually put on entrance duty to the residential zone; which is where he was today. Imposing not due to his height – although that helped greatly – but imposing due to his figure. The wounds he received in the previous war had literally scarred him across his entire body, head to toes.

Respiratory issues, burnt and scarred flesh tissue, a few missing fingers, and no hair to speak of, yes Karson was an imposing figure. He was terrifying to some, and regarded as "hard-to-look-at" by others. So, he hid himself, not only from people's eyes through his uniform, but also from their social rules by choosing not to engage himself with others that much. The less he had to rasp his damaged voice to people, the better.

Currently, Kristopher was doing nothing more than his regular shtick, watching traffic in and out of the top-secret research facility's residential area – which in-of-itself was basically a small city. Ask for papers and passports, check them with the database, and either let them through or detain them – that one rarely happened.

'By the Echtkaiser, I'd give anything for something new to pop up for once,' came the sardonic thought from the bored guard.

You know the phrase "ask and ye shall receive"? Never let that occur, ever. The universe has a weird way of dropping shit on you – usually from high above in the command chain.

This time though, it was the arrival of yet another vehicle trying to enter the residential suburbs of _Grosser Krater's_ outer ring. Surprisingly, the fancy-looking sportscar was followed by a moving truck, something that wasn't very common to see at the facility/city. The car itself was an import, an expensive sports car that Karson assumed possibly came from either the Latin Empire or Urea.

Motioning for the car to roll forward, Karson lazily cast an eye towards the heat sensor system, noting down that only two people occupied it. The car itself, apparently, was a Urean Icarus 410, its license plate linking it to a family of seven in the Wintermünster-Eindhoven area. Interesting to note down, but nothing really serious.

Finally nodding to the driver and waving for him to lower the window, Karson waited until it was halfway down and asked "Papers, _bitte schon_."

"Here you are, _Herr offizier_ ," the driver responded, handing Karson both his own and his passenger's passports and documentation.

GKI's security was tight – tighter than a virgin, some of the older guards would joke – and required people coming and going to present documentation to even get through and out the residential area. All ingoing and outgoing information on the internet, and mail – for those who still used it – was severely watched and tracked, while all the citizens within the area were tracked via electronic footprints, and another reason that never was released to the public. For people incoming to the residential zone, they needed to present both passports, health cards, driver's license, and/or social identification number. For those leaving to go shopping, or some other reason, citizens need to present their passports and social identification numbers. This was all done to tightly secure the semi-autonomous region's security and secrets.

Nevertheless, Karson – who had been asking for papers and such all day – merely put the information in front of him into the system, waited a bit for it to be processed, noting down everything, and then paused. This was…

"Excuse me, sir," Karson began, looking from the computer screen in his little hut back to the gentleman in the vehicle, "The system's saying that you're moving into the residential zone? Is that correct?"

The man nodded, before pausing.

"Actually, it's my son," he stated, jerking a thumb to the passenger before continuing, "he's who's moving into the area. He's just accepted a job here, and since we live in Wintermünster, we figured that he'd have a better time moving in rather than taking the train to the closest city, before using the bus every day."

"Hm," Karson hummed, turning back to the computer screen, " _das ist gutt_ , I suppose. All the documentation is there, so I have no qualms with sending you on your way. However, I should say this, you need to head to the registration offices just a block down the way. This is to get your son registered into the facility's system, so there are no issues further down the line, _aber natrulich_."

" _Vielen Dank_ , _Herr offizier_ ," the man stated, "I should add that the gentlemen in the truck behind us are with us, so if you could just point them in the direction in which they need to go when they're done, that'd be great too. Thanks for the help, and you have yourself a good day, eh?"

Karson responded in return to the good tidings, and waved the driver along, getting everything ready for the next vehicle to come to the residential zone, burdened with the furniture of the previous entries.

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The architecture of Grosser Krater's residential zone was something designed out of the pulp magazines printed way before Helmuth's time. _Atompunk_ , he thought it was called. The buildings were about futuristic as one could get in these modern times; green roofs covered in dirt for communicable crop growing, solar plates for green energy, and a majority of the buildings passed were mostly community buildings like apartments and bunkhouses. It was the idea of stuff as many families together in one place, let them be able to supply themselves for the most part, and make them eco-friendly/self-sustainable housing. Hell, Helmuth swore he even saw some empty plots of land where families and people were tending to livestock!

"This is quite the place, isn't it?" His father asked him as they slowly moved through the 'burbs, having finished getting Helmuth set up into the identification system the closed-city seemed to have.

"All self-sustainable by the looks of it, yeah," Helmuth replied, waving back to a friendly woman out with her dog. "Makes you think if this whole setup is the way of the future, or the bigwigs here just think it'll be an experiment. How people lived back in the old days and if it could work in today's world with the technology we have."

Adolf scoffed. "We have the technology," he spat, turning left onto another avenue. "it's whether or not those damned politicians will get off their collective asses and do anything with it is the problem."

Helmuth nodded at that. "True," he conceded, before adding, "but the Federation is first in the world when it comes to implementing this sort of tech dad. Well, us and our allies. Both Ormata and Helvana are slowly working on introducing some of the stuff we've had for a decade or so, like those desalination plants in the inner provinces. Even some other countries, like Urea or the Latin Empire are introducing large-scale power projects like what we've got here."

His father laughed at, smacking his hand against the steering wheel of the car. "Those back-water fucks wouldn't know technology if it slapped its dick across their face!" He chortled, adding something about the most secular states of the world, their stances on 'technocracy', and something about their collective mothers that should rather be left unsaid.

"Still," he added after finishing that tirade, "I got to give them credit, they managed to force their physicists in labour camps into designing the first atomic weapon, way back in '53. Only after they started in fucking 19-fucking-39! We got ours in under a year and a half, and it was a hydrogen one!"

"Alright dad," Helmuth placated, patting his old man on the shoulder to calm him, "Hey, isn't that the place? 104 Heisenberg Strasse, right?"

And indeed, it was, the seven-story apartment complex at the end of a cul-de-sac, standing slightly taller than the two complexes on either side of it. It was, surprisingly, slightly less atompunkish than the other buildings on the block, and looked like it was a mix of both atompunk and the mid-1950s ' _hoher Architekturstil_ '. It was a rather nice blend of styles, actually. Not too bad on the eyes.

And of course, parked out front was the rent-a-van and movers that were hired to help Helmuth move to this community, far, far away from Wintermünster. In fact, it looked like…

"Are those dicks done already…?" Adolf murmured, staring at the three movers who were standing around the back of the open truck. "Or are they just waiting around for us, doing jack-all?"

"I think they might be done," Helmuth said. By all means, it looked like they were done, considering how they were standing around with coffees, chatting with who might be the apartment owner. "I mean, look. They don't have any dolly's out, nor are they moving anything around in the truck."

His father just responded with a low growl, the kind Helmuth knew meant Hell for someone if things weren't all okay. And quite frankly, Helmuth was happy it wasn't pointed at him this time.

The two pulled up behind the van, his father putting the car in park before the father-son duo exited the vehicle – Helmuth taking an extra moment to grab his personal bag from the rear seats. The slamming of car doors seemed to awaken the movers who all set their coffees down and looked towards both Adolf and Helmuth, the youngest of the trio waving at the younger von Trotha, whom waved back.

"Are you all done here?" Adolf asked when he was within speaking distance of the movers, adopting what the von Trotha clan referred to as Adolf's 'Work Voice'.

"Yessir!" Came the stout reply from the burliest of the movers, "All of the boxes have been moved into the building, and are left for your son to unpack. All that's left is the appliances, but apparently, the room was already furnished with those."

"Good to hear then," Adolf replied, handing the man three separate 100CUD bills, "Here's your tip, for the three of you. You guys have a safe drive, a good day, and thanks."

The men thanked him, and left within short notice, before Adolf and Helmuth turned towards the apartment owner.

The man was young – he looked like he was in his late thirties – and had close cut, brunet hair that was slicked back with hair grease. Two tiny, coal-scuttle eyes filled with mirth that a mere smile couldn't contain sat between a crooked nose, under which a bushy mustache sat. The man was wearing a simple pair of jeans and a white tee shirt, and both articles of clothes were lightly dusted with dirt. A smile – which grew as he seemed to realize who the two in front of him were – held several crooked teeth topped off the look.

The man stuck his hand out, shaking first Adolf's, then Helmuth's hand as he introduced himself.

"Pleased to meet the both of you," he stated with a Helvanic drawl, "the name's Yerzov Andrei Germanovich. Most people just call me Andy or Andrei, whichever you prefer."

"Pleased to meet you, _Herr_ Germanovich," Adolf started, before Andrei cut him off.

"Ah, none of that _Herr_ bullshit bud, I'm a rather informal dude. Just Andrei is fine, or Germanovich, please." He explained.

Helmuth chuckled at the look of confusion his father was giving off. All his life he was used to acting in a proper, polite manner with other people as a high-ranking mafioso, and here was some thirty-something politely telling him to stick it.

Taking the initiative, Helmuth shook Germanovich's hand again. "Sorry, my father's just used to dealing with stuck-up brown-nosers. He doesn't know how to act normally. I'm Helmuth von Trotha, pleased to meet you Andrei."

"It's no worries, Helmuth. I'm used to it!" Germanovich stated with a booming laugh. "I see that you're covering you arm pretty good there, I'm assuming you've already got your SIN then? That's probably why your movers got here before the both of you!"

It was true. Helmuth had tried to favour his dominant hand – his right one – when shaking Germanovich's hand, but the wince when the Helvanic squeezed apparently let the cat out. It came as a shock to both father and son that when applying for entry into the security system in the closed-city, your social identification number – SIN – was literally tattooed onto the back of your forearm at the registration office. Officially it was for easy access to one's SIN to make 100% sure you were who you said you were, but it was also used by GKI as a security identification system for accessing where one needed to go.

In Helmuth's words, it was one part amazing, another part sheer sadism. Whomever thought that up had to be one.

"Well, what am I doing keeping you two here, eh?" Germanovich jokingly stated, now walking to the apartment. "Follow along, I'll show you guys where Helmuth will be staying."

The two followed the man, quietly entering the main lobby of the building. The lobby in-of-itself wasn't much to shake a fist at. With an art deco style, a small area off to one side where a small coffee machine and a couple plush chairs sat, and one bored looking teenage girl sitting at a reception desk next to a pair of elevators. In fact, if one wasn't squinting, the lobby of the place looked like a mini-hotel lobby. All it was missing was a bellhop and a small breakfast area.

"This place looks like a hotel," Adolf commented sarcastically with a whistle, putting Helmuth's look on the room into words.

"Thanks," Germanovich replied without a hitch, not really paying attention to the sarcasm; or he chose not to. "My Pop was the one who owned this place before me, and well, his original plan was for it to be a hotel. However, when GKI implemented all those security laws, Pops just decided he could rent and have it _look_ like a hotel instead."

"I'll admit it feels rather homey," Helmuth admitted as the trio stepped into one of the elevators, "Like you're actually on a business trip rather than being in a new home."

"Aha, I tried for that too," Germanovich supplied unabashedly, "I felt that if someone who had just moved here felt a sorta' friendliness in the building, they'd stay longer. Ya dig it? I've been running this place for three decades after Pops up and quit, and I've only had a couple people move out because they didn't like it."

Helmuth nodded, "And that's what happened with my room?"

"Uh, no, actually," Germanovich replied with a grimace. "I don't know what happened to the previous tenant. All that happened was that I got one of the bigwigs from the actual crater pop in, hand me the rest of the dude's rent for the month, and say he wasn't going to be coming back. 'Up and disappeared', I believe what the egghead said."

Helmuth and his father shared a glance at this.

"Still, most accidents that occur here aren't really that bad," their pseudo-guide continued, "most folks just get a few days off or so. The worst I've seen have got to be either what happened to one of the scientists, or that one guard… From what I heard, and mind you, this is all scuttlebutt and rumors, the whitecoat got a fateful of disintegration ray, and had his consciousness ripped from his body or sumthin'. And the other guy was worse."

"How so?" Adolf interjected as they stopped at floor seven and exited.

"I was getting to him," Germanovich stated, scratching his head. "From what I heard, this guy was a survivor of the last war, the one between us and Talion. He was at the place where they nuked too, caught the full blast. Came down with radiation sickness, was bleeding like, everywhere. So, the doctors pull him from the front and ship him here to examine him and several others who had been caught in the blast. The other guys, they got out alright, but this poor guy was here for weeks. Being poked and prodded for weeks on end, watching him melt from the inside out and whatnot."

"And then one day, one of the shrinks get this bright idea: this guy's dying, why not stuff him in another body? And all the other doctors think this is fucking great, and so they literally take the guy's brain out of his skull, and shove it into one of those synthetics and go: 'Job done!', and send the poor fuck back to the front lines. Dunno if he died or not there, but I kinda hope he did. Being stuck in a body not your own musta' been terrifying."

"But that's all rumors, right?" Helmuth asked as they finally got to his room.

"Mm, yeah," came Germanovich's lazy reply. "Anyways, here we are, Room Seven-Eight-Four."

Opening the door, Andrei ushered the two inside, showcasing the surprisingly spacious room with all the flair of a retailer selling an actual home.

Upon entering, one would have the small walk-in kitchen off to their left, while a broom closet – or a closet for jackets and shoes – would be off to their right. Inside said kitchen was a counter along the wall, and a small counter/island connecting the kitchen to the living space. Like the movers outside had stated, the kitchen was furnished with a full-sized fridge and freezer, an oven-top stove, and a dishwasher. Several of Helmuth's boxes that read ' _Kitchen supplies_ ' sat upon both the counters.

Further down the hallway and connected to the kitchen's island was a living space. A loveseat-style couch took up much of the left wall, while a bookcase covered the remainder to the balcony. Across from the couch was a 15" television, as well as several boxes of books and other trinkets to be put away. On the right-hand side of the hallway were two doors, one leading to an empty room filled with boxes and a table, and the other – closer to the balcony – was the bedroom. Inside was Helmuth's queen-sized bed, as well as his dresser and another door, this one leading to the bathroom. All-in-all, it was a rather nice setup for an apartment, Helmuth had to admit. And the way Germanovich showed them around was just that tad bit over-the-top.

"And there you have it," said Helvanic ended with a flourish, "the entirety of your new home! Now, just two more things before I get out of your hair Helmuth! First, if you ever need to, you're allowed to use your balcony to grow any homegrown crops like tomatoes and the like. It's actually a bylaw of the area that I'm legally required to tell you." He admitted.

"Second! Here's my cell number in case you actually need anything from me!" He continued, handing a workcard with his information on it. "Other than that, rent's usually due on the first Friday of every month, and the laundry room can be found in Room Seven-Oh-One when you need it."

"Thank you very much Andrei," Helmuth replied, pocketing the card. "I feel like this might be a good place for me, so thanks."

"Absolutely no issues my man!" Germanovich shot back with a laugh, shaking both his and his father's hand. "Got to go for now, but don't be a stranger eh?"

"What an odd man," Adolf admitted when the apartment owner had finally left the room, sitting down on the couch. "Still, are you happy son? You've got a new place, which I'll be covering the first month for you, and a new job."

Helmuth smiled, "Yeah, thanks dad. I think I might get a good start here."

"That's what I'm for," the elder von Trotha replied, getting up. "Now, I'm sorry to leave you like this, unpacked and everything, but I promised your mother I'd be back home for dinner, and we both know how she is about that."

Both men shuddered at that thought.

"Now, I wish you the best son. Remember to email your mother and I bimonthly – that's twice a month, not every two – and be safe, ok?"

"I will dad," Helmuth promised, giving his father a last hug. "Tell everyone I said hi, and that they're welcome to visit whenever."

"I will. _Wir sehen uns um Kind_."

"See ya."

Now alone with himself and his thoughts, Helmuth turned to the balcony. Quietly stepping outside, he leaned over the railing and stared at the massive crater a kilometer and a half away; his new place of work. Freedom at last. Now to make it last.

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 **Ende Szene**

 ***Edited at 0216 AM of October 2nd, missed a thing.**

 ***Edited #2 at 1010 AM on October 2nd, apparently FF doesn't like my page breaks.**


	2. Kapitel-II Jetzt allein

**Here we go, chapter two! I managed to crank this thing out in like, five days – which makes sense in its word count. I hope those who've looked at this are all enjoying it, because next chapter is where I'm gonna cliffhang you all on Helmuth's entrance into the realm of F/GO! So, buckle up for that as you wade through these first few chapters of exposition and world-building.**

 **Not going to lie, I wanted to continue the chapter after the ending where it was, but cliff hangers bring in returning viewers, so it's a good hook in my book. Thanks to all of you who either favourited or followed the story in the first few days, I'm glad you all like it. I hope more join in as we continue along. Also, I would like to specifically thank "Naruto Tendo Rikudo" for favoriting and following literally a half hour after I posted the first chapter. I don't know what you saw in a fic posted in the F/SN fanbase that – so far – has nothing to do with the Nasuverse, but alright, you do you!**

 **Now, onto the shenanigans.**

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"What did you expect?" – Talking

'A war like no other?' – Thought

" _Der Teufel selbst_?" – Very bad Google Translate, or emphasis on speech

' _Or just a bad dream_?' – Written word

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It was two days later that saw Helmuth fully unpacked in his new home; his employers at GKI had graciously given him a whole week to settle into the residential zone known as Neo-Brunnhammer. In those two days, Helmuth had been greeted to the sight of the morning sunrise through his bedroom window, joined in the community sharecrop initiative on Heisenberg Strasse, had gotten familiarized with the immediate area, and had met his neighbors. To Helmuth, this was truly the new start his father had promised him: away from Wintermünster, away from the painful memories there, away from the things that he was sure had been corroding his soul.

And now, in Neo-Brunnhammer, Helmuth stood upon his balcony nursing a cup of _ersatz_ and an aspirin to chase away the hangover from the previous night. He had managed to find himself an actual bar within walking distance of his apartment – the Gilded Saber – and had spent most of the evening there with other barflies. Surprisingly, only some of the regulars there were members of the _Schutztruppen_ , the security force that were employed by GKI. It was rather interesting speaking with them, as they were only a couple of the people with actual insight into the whole place.

"The one thing you've got to be careful of," one of them had warned him, "are the doctors themselves. They're ultimately the ones running the whole show, although they want you to think the government is the one in charge. I've seen some spooky shit go down because one of those dinks decided he wanted to cut corners."

So, yeah; that was something to look to. Morally ambiguous scientists with enough capital and political clout to push around a small city. Best to stay on their good side.

Nevertheless, as he was pondering the inner machinations of the scientist community, his eyes turned to the northeast, where he got a pretty clear view into the crater itself. There, just _barely_ in his field of vision, was what appeared to be a small warship. At a glance, it was old, of Yytuskian design, and not-so-surprisingly held aloft on steel girders, as there was no major body of water nearby for kilometers. Day in, and day out Helmuth could see scientists and workers scuttling aboard and around the vessel, tinkering about. What use an old warship would have in the arid badlands of Schärzis, he had no idea.

Sucking back the last of his _ersatz_ coffee, Helmuth retreated back inside, ready for a nice day of relaxation, some possible video gaming on his PC, and possibly another outing to meet some more floormates.

With his back to the plate-glass windows, he missed the quite obvious flash of purple-green light emanating from one of the research buildings down in the crater.

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"I'm expected for an appointment, it should be under von Trotha!"

This was yelled into the face of an unresponsive, and uncaring, _Unterwachoffizier_ standing just on the platform after you'd get off the cable car necessary to get down into the crater proper of Neo-Brunnhammer. The yeller, was in fact our stalwart pseudo-hero, Helmuth von Trotha, who, at the moment, was getting precariously close to being late to his orientation with the HR Manager at GKI proper.

"I'm sorry kid," responded the guard, "your SIN number isn't in the system, you don't have clearance. I'm going to have to ask you once again, get lost."

Helmuth fumed, fumbling around in his saddlebag. "Look, I got a written – and signed – order from _Hauptdoktor_ Schiessman to report to them at exactly ten thirty hours, today," he began, retrieving the letter that had been handed to him by his father over a week ago. "And what time is it now? Ten twenty-one! I'm going to be late, and I should be listed as urgent somewhere!"

The guard let out a weary sigh, grabbing the letter from Helmuth's hand. Taking a quick glance at it, he finally let out a quiet curse and turned on his radio.

" _Unterwachoffizier_ Tallman calling in, can I get _Doktor_ Schiessman on phone line ten, _bitte_? There's a kid here with a letter or something."

There was a burst of static across the signal, and muffled speaking that Helmuth couldn't make out, but the guards eyes perked up at some of the words. The conversation continued on the other end for some time, a few minutes or so, before the guard finally motioned to Helmuth and turned off the radio.

"Alright," the Tallman stated, ushering Helmuth past him into the guard house, "sounds like you were actually legit. Now, follow me, I'll lead you to where you need to be."

The old guard quickly led Helmuth outside, straight towards the administration centre without even waiting for Helmuth's response.

Outside of both the stuffy guardhouse and loud cable car house, Helmuth was greeted with the large concrete walls surrounding the entirety of the institution, as well as the many facility buildings scattered around the crater.

Just ahead of the two was the main administration centre for the research community. Built out of concrete blocks like most modern buildings, the administration centre was the only building out of the dozen or so in the crater not to feature a mostly glass-and-steel design; inside the design of the building was a neo-modern look, making it look bland compared to some of the other buildings. Marble columns stood at either corner of the two-story building, and besides the entrance as well. Oxidized copper roofing gave the building an even more illustrious touch to it, almost making it pop out and say: I was here first, look at me! Still, it was nothing compared to the other futuristic looking buildings surrounding it.

Just behind the admin centre, towering over the small two-story building was what Helmuth guessed as the central research building. A towering pyramid of shimmering glass and steel, Helmuth could only gauge from the small bits he could see, as the administration stood in front of it. It was at least ten to twelve stories tall, with the top of the pyramid topped with what appeared to be either oxidized copper, or jade. On each floor Helmuth could see scientists working at terminals, or at large whiteboards. Around the fifth floor or so was a cafeteria from what he could see. Or maybe that was just a relaxation area where people could eat.

Other buildings caught his eye as he and the guard made their way to the front door of the administration building.

Off to his left was a barracks attached into the concrete barrier encircling the facility. This where the guards probably resided for the most part, as he had seen some around where he lived for the past week or so with their families. This one was probably just for single guys to bunk in.

And to the right was that strange dry dock where the warship was sitting. Work apparently was continuing on the forward main battery turret, and if Helmuth had to guess he'd put his money on the design of the ship as a –

"Alright, get your butt inside kid," came Tallman's voice, cutting into Helmuth's thoughts. "Someone in there should know what to do with you, I've got to get back to my post."

"Ah," Helmuth replied intelligently, "Thanks?"

A rather crass remark came back, causing Helmuth to wince, before silently slipping past the doors into the building. Here, he was met with a rather interesting change of environments.

While the outside of the administration building was dull, drab, and bland, the inside was anything but. Marble tiled floors, completed wood paneling across the walls, a stained-glass skylight above his head, and leather chairs and couches strew about what could only be the waiting room of the place. About halfway across the room was a large desk area, where Helmuth assumed was where the whole information desk would be. Behind that was a marble staircase going up towards the second floor, where scientists and plain clothed people walked about.

Closing his mouth that had gone agape upon seeing the absolute luxury of the place, Helmuth slowly made his way towards the front desk, looking at the smiling man watching his every step up towards him.

"Good morning sir, how can I help you?" The man asked politely.

"Uh," Helmuth started, "I'm looking for a way to get to Doctor Schiessman quickly. I have a meeting with them."

"Ah, yes. Mr. von Trotha!" The man announced joyfully, turning to his computer. "I got good news for you, your meeting has been bumped back an hour. I figured you'd need it seeing how you were caught up with _Offizier_ Tillman."

Helmuth blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"It's about ten thirty at the moment, Mr. von Trotha," Came the reply with a chuckle. "I pushed the meeting back for both you and Dr. Schiessman, to give you time."

"Oh," Helmuth murmured. "Thanks Mister…?"

"H3-D7," the now introduced man – a synthetic, Helmuth's mind supplied – said. "And you're most welcome. You may refer to me as Hermann Dornier, or just Haitch-Three if you need to."

"Now, in regards to your appointment," he continued, "you'll need to head up the stairs behind me and head into Building A. You'll find Dr. Schiessman's office on floor eleven; A11-10. The doctor will be expecting you, so you can just head off now."

Helmuth hummed, "Thanks Hermann," before walking off, murmuring to himself, "Didn't know this was connected to the pyramid…"

Slipping his way into the mass of people moving about in A Building, Helmuth continued his way to where he thought the elevators might be. He was once again agape at the decadence of the interior decorations of the place, what with works of art on the walls, couches arranged in groups around coffee tables for relaxation, et cetera. If he were a member of the SAP – that is, a red-blooded communist – he would be frothing at the mouth at the amount of decadence shown before him. Instead, he continued to marvel as he shouldered his way to the elevators, glancing this way and that at the rest areas, works of art – paint-based or otherwise – and at the amount of people relaxing or working around him. The whole place was like a stock market, or an airport terminal filled with people nowhere to go.

Finally securing himself in one of the elevators, Helmuth quietly slapped the button listed for Floor Eleven, and settled himself amongst a dozen or so people also in the elevator. There was a scientist or two murmuring to themselves of in a corner, so Helmuth slyly lent an ear.

"… so, everything involved with the operation is being shelved for the moment, until the Heads get some more fresh bodies in." One commented, scratching at his chin.

"Sure, sure," the other one postured, "you guys get more guys for that operation, and yet we're still scraping by with funding for some of agricultural projects that're ongoing."

Scientist One scoffed. "Not my fault man. The project is the brainchild of the Director's grandfather, so of course it'll get more funding."

"Doesn't matter that you guys only got the thing running last year."

"Mm, true. But this has been in the works for a few decades Klaus, I think it's a matter of stubbornness at this point now that it _does_ work. Anyways, here's my stop. See ya."

"Whatever," Scientist Two commented, waving his friend away as they got off.

And then suddenly it was just Helmuth, two guards, and three floors to go. And with each floor passed, Helmuth's anxiety increased. Upon reaching the eleventh floor, however, the two guards exited the elevator to the left, while Helmuth went right, following the signs to room A11-10.

Helmuth's travel to the room wound through several corridors, before finally ending up at a pair of double doors – mahogany – where he simply knocked.

Setting himself down one the couch across from the door, he sat there, waiting.

About ten minutes later, the doors in front of him opened inward, letting a pair of scientists out, and – who he assumed to be Dr. Schiessman – to let him in.

Politely thanking the man, Helmuth was startled when a chuckle from the corner of the room echoed out.

"Oh, my bad," the voice added, "I just wasn't expecting you to think that was me!"

Dr. Schiessman, to Helmuth's slight surprise, was a lady. Lithe, and shorter than he was by about half a foot, the doctor wasn't imposing by any means. She had he hair – chestnut brown – bundled up in a bun, while a small pair of rectangular glasses rested on the bridge of her nose.

Quickly finishing her drink, she made her way back to her desk, motioning for Helmuth to sit.

"Dreadfully sorry you thought Bernard was me," she began, settling comfortably into her chair, "I used to get that a lot when I was getting settled in. Anyways, welcome to _Grosser Krater_ , we're glad to have you here Helmuth von Trotha. In all honesty, I was expecting one of your older brothers to show, even one of your father's closest allies, not yourself. But, this a welcome change."

She paused as the now-introduced Bernard sat a tray of tea on the table, before standing off to one side. Then, leaning forward to stare at Helmuth through her glasses, she began.

"Now, I'm sure you got some questions for me, but I got a couple things I need to run through here first. First off, what you'll be seeing, experiencing, and doing here is completely off the record. If you say, write, or record anything – anything at all – that's grounds for execution and your parents will just get a letter saying you were killed in an unfortunate accident. Everything you send to said parents, whether it be electronically or written, will be thoroughly vetted and censored to see if you're trying to send anything unlawful. I can – and will if need be – basically erase you from the records. You will cease to be if you fuck up."

"Second: there's a lot of projects ongoing here other than the one you'll be a part of. If, for whatever reason, you're called to help out with one of the projects, you will answer with a yes and try your damnedest. I've had a couple occasions where the people in your position were able to make breakthroughs elsewhere. So be useful if you're not doing anything on base."

"Third, and finally, your father and I are trusting you with quite a bit here. You're basically signing up for the hardest job here that will test your skills, as well as your will. You'll be working alongside war veterans with a lot more experience than you. You'll be pioneering the newest weaponry and equipment from GKI, and exploring places you've never seen before. So, in tune with the first thing, we need complete secrecy from you. No one, other than myself and the ones involved with the project, must know what goes on. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am," came Helmuth's automated response, too astonished to think.

"Good," Dr. Schiessman said calmly, withdrawing a folder from her desk and sliding it over to Helmuth. "This is the required paperwork you'll need to finish before you and I can head down to the place where you'll be working in. These forms are a more detailed version of that small speech I just gave you, and will require your initials at the end of each form."

"And then I get to see just what my father got me into then?" Helmuth asked, putting pen to paper, barely looking through the documents. "Uh, I'll be getting like, benefits as well right?"

"Your own personal weaponry if you so choose," she began, listing off her fingers, "access to advanced weaponry and prototypes, full-scale healthcare in case of any bits get blown off, et cetera. Regular stuff guys in your position would get."

"About that," Helmuth replied, "what, er, what exactly is this position I'm in?"

Dr. Schiessman merely looked at Helmuth like he had grown a second head, before slowly uttering "Did no one inform you what the job you were applying for was?"

"No."

"No?"

"No ma'am," Helmuth answered. "Everyone just kept saying 'oh yeah, here's your new job, and all the stuff that's required of you', but not what the job itself was."

"Oh," came Schiessman's intelligent reply.

"Yes, oh."

There was a bit of an awkward silence as Helmuth finished signing all the legal documents, before Dr. Schiessman spoke again.

"Well then," she began, taking the documents from Helmuth's hand, "I suppose I ought to take you to where you need to go, and then explain everything."

"Why not right here?"

"Too many ears unfortunately," came her immediate response, "I'd much rather talk about Project Arcadius in the safety of it's walls."

Helmuth could do nothing but shrug. What was a few extra minutes of waiting to figure out just what the fuck he was doing.

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It was around twenty minutes later that saw Helmuth, Dr. Schiessman, and Bernard finally stood within the confines of G Building, taking an elevator down several floors to the sub-basement level nine. While it didn't bother Helmuth much, they would've gotten there ten minutes faster, but it seemed everyone had something to say or ask to Dr. Schiessman, so they were stopped a couple of times.

Now though, Helmuth would be getting to the bottom of just what the heck was going on.

Apparently, G Building had been constructed solely for this Project Arcadius, which sat several meters below the earth in a reinforced bunker of sorts. Something about the radiant radiation that the project gave off every time it was booted up. The first floor was rather asinine, a small entrance, cubicles, and other necessities for scientists to use. The basements levels going down ranged anywhere from weapon ranges, a full-on repair shop, a small vehicle bay with motorcycles and armoured cars, and finally sub-basement nine, where the trio was at now.

Stepping out after Dr. Schiessman, Helmuth marveled at the rows of computers sitting in front of plate glass windows. Beyond that was a lowered room – possibly sub-basement ten – with what looked like a large ray gun pointing down from the ceiling to a platform.

"This is the Hive," Dr. Schiessman began, turning around to face Helmuth, "this is the center of Project Arcadius. It is here where you'll be monitored on your travels in your squad, and it is this place which will be your last connection to this world on duty."

Helmuth gave pause, looking to Dr. Schiessman who held a sickening grin on her face.

"On duty… On duty where exactly?" He asked, fearing the answer.

"Oh, off-world of course." Came the almost nonchalant reply from the Doctor. "Project Arcadius isn't about making our world better. It's about exploring others; the exploration of realms outside our own. Welcome to the programme young Helmuth, hope you'll enjoy your stay here."

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 **Well there we are. Three thousand words just in time for Canadian Thanksgiving Day! I finished cranking this out around 12:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day morning, for about 3,181 words including some of the page breaks. Not the eight thousand of the first chapter sure, but I wanted to get this out so I could relax Thanksgiving evening, let everything sit you know?**

 **Well anyways, next chapter will see Helmuth's first and second deployment in Project Arcadius, the other three in his soon-to-be four-man squad, and some more exposition about the world of Helmuth von Trotha.**

 **Don't forget to follow if you're new, or give me a review if you like it enough or got any questions! I'll gladly answer any you guys and gals got!**


	3. Kapitel-III Ein Feuer am Himmel

**Well, I feel like I'm getting in the groove of writing for two hours every night before bed now. That's been a chapter a week man, this is good! Anyways, here we finally see some action as we get into the core of what the Arcadius Project actually does. If anyone wants information on it, I'll expose that over some later chapters, as right now there's gonna be some major action going on. That's right readers, Singularity Fuyuki.**

 **This chapter clocked in at around 5,138 words when I was done. I finished with the idea that again, cliff hangers bring people in because they want to know what the heck is going on next, so sorry!**

 **And now, the Reviewer's Reviewed!**

 **To** ** _ZenoZen_** **: Things are going to get a heck of a lot more real for Helmuth in the future my dude. Just you wait!**

 **And that's all. Anyways, I should probably let you all get to reading now. Have fun!**

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"What did you expect?" – Talking

'A war like no other?' – Thought

" _Der Teufel selbst_?" – Very bad Google Translate, or emphasis on speech

' _Or just a bad dream_?' – Written word

~ _Maybe it was nothing at all._ ~ – Radio Chatter

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A few hours later had Helmuth staring at the rifle in his hands.

Ok, so it was more like a small submachine gun, but it was the first firearm he'd picked up since he finished CompServ when he turned nineteen. Two whole years ago, a while if he thought about it.

The _Machinenpistole 10_ was a small, light-weight SMG used by support infantry and tank crews in the _Heer_. Chambered in the military standard 9x19mm round used by so many countries around the world, it was compact – about 20 centimeters in length from rear to barrel end – and hade a high cycle rate. That is to say, it fired around about 900 to 1,000 per minute, a veritable bullet hose. Very easy to use, easy to clean, and dead useful in close combat. Excellent for someone who hadn't been in a gunfight before.

Other than the MP10, he also had a 11.23mm-chambered pistol – the P12 – holstered under his left armpit, and a _Panzerpunkt_ 9 multi-purpose launcher on his back.

Out of the other three members of his "unit", two held the standard G4A3 assault rifle of the _Heer_ , and the third – Erhardt Muhlkampf – toted a MG5. Apparently, when this unit was put together, the higher ups thought that two riflemen, a squad gunner, and a Light Anti-Tank would work wonders; and by all accounts Helmuth was perfectly fine with that. The MP10 was easy enough to use, and the launcher was capable of destroying anything on land or in the air. Nevertheless…

"So, you're our LAT eh?" Muhlkampf commented as Helmuth quietly slipped on his brand-new combat boots – a part of his new uniform.

"That would be correct", he replied softly, wiggling his toes when he finished putting the boots on. "Question for you since we'll be playing Twenty Questions. When does this suit stop feeling so weird?"

The suit in question he was speaking about was his under-uniform: a skin-tight, black coloured piece of, what Helmuth assumed, was either latex or rubber. It was designed to protect the wearing against chemical and biological hazards, such as other dimensional pathogens that would wreck havoc on a person. A full-body suit, it covered the whole body, with the exception of the face which would be covered by a gasmask. And for Helmuth, it itched.

"That's a good question Green," Muhlkampf mused, rubbing his chin. "I'd say after your first sortie? I stopped caring about after a couple hours, it sort of becomes a second skin you know? That's what the doc's call it too: _Zweitehaut_."

"Alright then."

"I personally wouldn't worry about it Green," Muhlkampf continued, slipping on a pair of trousers over his under-uniform, "Where we'll be going, and what you'll be seeing, you'll stop thinking about that suit in due time."

Helmuth grunted in a slight agreement, throwing on a military issue overcoat on top of the regular-issue uniform he had steadily put on. Slipping on the holster for his P12 and standing up from the bench, Helmuth turned to look at the other two members of the squad.

Max Mannheim was almost as tall as he was, and had a shock of dusty red hair hidden underneath his under-uniform. He had barely said a word when Helmuth had tried to introduce himself earlier, merely going through the paces of checking and cleaning his rifle. The scars he had on the left side of his face, as well as the identification tags that hung around his neck suggested he was ex-military, but Helmuth saw no other glaring factor to support that claim. Unless he got the answer from the man's own mouth – which was unlikely, as Muhlkampf had quietly informed him not to pry.

Elma Hertzog, on the other hand, was a punch of fresh activity in the room. A rainbow fauxhawk was the most eye-catching thing on her head, as she chose not pull the hood of the under-uniform over her head. Off in the corner of the changing room, she was bouncing on the balls of her feet, hopping back and forth to an invisible tune. Adorning her face were several small tattoos, and a nose piercing as well. All of this gave her a rather punkish style to her, which Helmuth digged. It looked good on her.

Nevertheless, he knew none of the people in this room honestly, and while they might've known each other, he was a stranger. Strange enough, sure, but now he and these strangers were going to go through space and time itself to somewhere no one on this planet had been before. It was going to be awkward before anything got solid.

"So what kind of music do you like?" Elma asked suddenly from her corner, still dancing to her own tune.

Helmuth started, "Erm, music? I like classic rock, if that's what you're asking."

"Umh," Elma hummed, shaking her head, "That can't be all the genres you like! Name some bands, other genres, different songs! I wanna know!"

"Well, I also like swing music," Helmuth began, thinking, "and there's classical as well. For bands and songs? I'd have to say Geschutz is my favourite band, while my favourite song would have to be Gerald's Opus Fourteen in A Major. I feel like that song's thick enough."

Elma laughed. "'Thick enough'? Are you describing a girl or a song?"

"What I mean is, the song itself and the notes get to such a point that it feels thick, saturated. But in a good way! Like the ceiling itself would fall if you turned it up too much." Helmuth explained, blushing.

Elma continued to laugh, before Muhlkampf coughed.

"Lay off the Greenie," he stated, doing up his combat helmet, "He might be new, but he's our LAT guy. We'll need him around to save your ass Elma, remember that."

" _Ja_ , _ja_ , Muhlkampf, got it in one."

Another silence as the quartet continued to gear up, until finally, they were ushered out of the changing room by several scientists attached to Arcadius. The march to the place that Helmuth now knew as the teleportation room – or the Gateroom as Dr. Schiessman called it – was quick and quiet, the only noise being the marching boots on Helmuth's feet echoing in the halls.

Entering into the Gateroom via a door below the Hive, the quartet continued until they stood underneath the teleportation apparatus hanging from the roof of the room. The two scientists who had escorted them there hung back by the doors, slipping back out of the room and securing the only entrance into the room. It was only after the doors were hermetically locked that Muhlkampf spoke up next to Helmuth.

"Alright, listen up Greenie, because I'll only be explaining this once," he began, standing stock still. "When the shrinks get the whole thing going, do not move a muscle. If you do so, there's a good chance you might get, what we call, telefragged. You know what that is?"

"Yessir," Helmuth replied, standing still as well, "I've played enough video games to know about that issue with teleportation."

"Good," continued Muhlkampf, "Now, after we teleport, we'll form a perimeter, secure the location, and followed the standard orders. Those will be: one, actively scout the surrounding area for hostiles; two, setup a base camp and night rotation; and three, if possibly contact the locals and their governments. Get that?"

Helmuth nodded once, "Got it. Question for you though, what'll it feel like?"

Muhlkampf just grinned. "You'll figure that out."

The reply from Helmuth was a cuss that made Mannheim chuckle to himself, while Muhlkmapf just flipped him off.

It was then that Helmuth's ears picked up a quiet whine that was starting to pick up in volume. Beside him, the other three quickly strapped their gasmask onto the helmets, forcing Helmuth to do the same. Underneath the helmet and mask, the whine was subdued somewhat, but continued to increase with every three seconds or so. Static burst into Helmuth's ears, and after a few seconds more, Dr. Schiessman's voice broke through.

~ _Radio check._ ~

 _~ Clear._ ~ Came Muhlkampf.

~ _Check._ ~ Came Mannheim.

~ _Clear and loud!_ ~ Came Hertzog.

~ _Jawohl._ ~ Helmuth responded.

~ _Gutt, now, listen up._ ~ Dr. Schiessman began calmly, ~ _This venture will be a new one for you all. The details are a little fuzzy, as we haven't had the time to send any probes through. Therefore, I want you all on your toes. We'll be monitoring everything from here as usual, and if we deem it dangerous enough we'll pull you back. Now, the dimension itself is hereby listed as D-004-01, and if you're all lucky, it'll be close enough like our own in terms of atmosphere and geological composition. If you find anything interesting, by all means keep a hold of it for research. Standard operations procedures are also in place, so make peaceful contact fi you can. Now, I believe that is all, best of luck to you all._ ~

Another voice rang through the radio, this one much more metallic and robotic sounding that Dr. Schiessman, as it counted down.

~ _9._ ~

~ _8._ ~

~ _7._ ~

Oh Gods, what had he gotten himself into? Truly?

~ _5._ ~

Was it too late to back out?

~ _3._ ~

Why did he get the feeling that Muhlkampf was grinning at him?

~ _1._ ~

Zero.

And like that, Helmuth felt a thousand stinging needles, pins, knives, swords, and any other sharp thing his screaming mind could supply stab into him as a bright green light poured over him. They were ripping him apart, tearing at his body! His soul! The pain, it was nothing he ever felt before! He could feel each individual molecule – Burning pain!

!

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And like that, it was over. The lights, the screaming – had that been his own? – and the static was all over.

The pain was gone, and Helmuth felt himself lying on his back, gasping deeply. Above him was the smiling – but worried – face of Elma Hertzog, gently propping him up. Her mouth moved, but Helmuth could hear nothing. He panicked, tearing at his ears. Oh Gods, had they – ?

Hertzog merely unclasped Helmuth's mask, gently ripping it from his face.

"Better?" She asked, smiling softly.

"Why," Helmuth gasped, still choking for breath, "why can't I breathe? I-I, how can I hear you now?"

"Take it easy," Elma said, propping Helmuth against a wall, "The first time's always a different kind of Hell. How many fingers?"

She held three of her fingers before Helmuth's eyes.

" _Drei_ " he replied, keeping a hand pressed against his erratically beating heart. "W-What the fuck was that? It felt like –"

"Blades?" she asked, grinning like an imp, "Molecular disintegration, at least that's what the scientists call it. From what I can gather, the teleportation system rips you apart at a molecular level, throwing you through time and space, before reforming you perfectly in another location. Very painful the first time around, but your body gets used to it after one or two jumps."

"And the breathing problems?"

"Nothing bad I hope?"

Helmuth shook his head, slowly standing up. "Out of breath, getting it back. Where are we?"

"That," Hertzog answered, "I do not know. I can't find Erhardt or Max either. It's just the two of us in here."

Casting an eye around, Helmuth noted that they were indeed the only living beings in the room. It was large, cavernous really, and very dark. A single light shone above what looked like a large casket in the middle of the room, raised above the floor on a large pyramid. Other than that, Helmuth could only see a large vault door on the wall to his right, a red carpet leading from the door up a pair of stairs to the casket. It looked… Cultish.

He said so to Elma.

"Well, yeah. It is a bit creepy," she answered. "I tried too, there's no way we'll be able to get out of here either. That door is the only way in or out of this room, and there's no controls on this side."

"We're stuck?" Helmuth asked incredulously.

"Mhm. We'll need to wait for – what are you doing?" Hertzog began, before pausing to inquire what Helmuth was doing.

What he was doing was simply walking over to the vault door, leaning an ear up against it and rapping a hand against it. The resounding echo that rang out through the room only had Helmuth shake his head and lean off the door.

"Fuck," Helmuth whispered, before turning to Hertzog. "We are stuck."

"Of course we are!" She replied angrily, "Why the fuck did you need to knock though?"

"Uh, to check how thick it was," Helmuth answered honestly, "This rocket launcher's HEAT warhead can penetrate like, four hundred millimetres of steel right? If the door had been thin enough, I could've punched a hole through the lock and we could've just opened it."

Hertzog just stared. "And why aren't we doing that?"

"Door's too thick."

"Just like Gerald's Op. Fourteen, right?" Came the simple response.

"Ah, fuck you," Helmuth laughed, making his way over to the staircase that lead to the casket. "Let's see what this thing is and try and contact Mannheim and Muhlkampf."

With a murmur from Hertzog that sounded like she was asking who had died and made him the leader, the two of them slowly made their way up the staircase, pausing in front of the casket.

It was made of, surprisingly, steel and glass. Standing upwards, the glass was covered in biohazard yellow coloured tape, obscuring any view into it. The tape itself had the international – now interdimensional in Helmuth's mind – biohazardous symbol, as well as weird lettering. Besides that, there stood a terminal next to the casket, the monitor running, with large cables hooked into the casket or winding upwards into the ceiling.

"What a weird thing this is," Helmuth commented off hand. "Wonder what's inside."

"At least I know what those words are," Elma responded with a grin, pointing to the biohazard tape. "Apparently it's kanji, the scripture of the Japanese people from the last world I'd been to."

"Can-gee?" Helmuth asked, scrunching his nose up as he tried to pronounce it correctly, "It's their alphabet, right?"

"More-or-less," came the nonchalant reply, "It's more like one of three of them I think. Anyways, if the tape's in kanji, then the computer must be too. Hang on one sec!"

With that, Hertzog turned her attention to the keyboard of the computer, and began clacking away.

As she busied herself with that, Helmuth made up his mind to take another approach. Unholstering his MP10, he withdrew the bulky silencer for it from his combat pack, threading the almost-forearm length silencer onto the end of the MP10's barrel. With it securely in place, he pulled back the charging handle on the right of the receiver, and unfolded the stock.

Taking a quick glance at the glass front of the casket, he calmly placed the silenced machine pistol's barrel what he thought to be the locking mechanism for the sliding glass pane. Quietly disengaging the safety, and flipping his firing choice to semi-automatic, he pulled the trigger.

A loud echoing thwump!, much quieter than the actual retort of the SMG due to the silencer, echoed throughout the room, startling Hertzog who was right next to Helmuth, heavily absorbed in the computer. A quiet crackling of glass followed soon after, before Helmuth merely swung the butt of the folding stock around against the glass, shattering it.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" Hertzog whispered urgently, grabbing Helmuth's arm.

"Smash and grab," came his calm reply, picking some of the broken glass away. "I figured that if it truly was biohazardous like the tape says, we'd have noticed by now, neh? Also, isn't one of our directives securing technology? This could be some sort of bioweapon."

"Or," Hertzog began, still fuming as Helmuth tore through the tape that had been behind the glass, "it could be something else like a – a school uniform?"

Indeed, it was just that, a schoolgirl's uniform. Blue and white, with golden accents, it sat within a suit cover on a hanger within the casket, thoroughly confusing both Helmuth and Elma. The two stared at for a while, before Helmuth shrugged and reached over, unzipping Hertzog's pack as she had joined beside him to stare at the uniform in shock. Swiftly swiping the coat hanger and its package off the bar, he folded the uniform twice over, before stuffing it into her rucksack.

"There," he commented, "secured. Now, let's see about getting the heck out and linking up with Muhlkampf, _ja_?"

Before Hertzog could nod at that, a blaring alarm rang out, and the light above them bathed the room in a deep red glow.

Cursing loudly at this, the two turned their attention to the vault door, which had begun to unlock at the sound of the alarm. With Hertzog readying her rifle, Helmuth did the same, taking cover behind the casket as Hertzog did the same on the other side.

It was a few tense seconds as the door slowly unlocked, and then swung open with a deep groan. Before Hertzog could even attempt to announce their presence, a gout of flame launched itself from the still opening door, scorching into the casket.

Helmuth gave a shriek, cowering as he felt the flames lick at his uniform.

" _Flammenwerfer_!" Hertzog yelled, merely peeking her rifle around the corner of the casket and letting off a burst of fire. "Fire at it you dick!"

"Got it!" Helmuth replied, swinging his MP10 around the corner and letting the bullet hose open up for him.

The silenced retort of the machine pistol was dwarfed by the sound of the flamethrower, as well as Hertzog's own rifle, but a loud scream sounded out before the fire stream stopped. Not bothering to peer out into the entrance, Helmuth changed the magazine on his SMG – which had emptied rather quickly spraying in full-auto – before deciding to holster it.

Nodding towards Hertzog, he called out "Get the Hive, tell them to pull us!" before unshouldering the Panzerpunkt. Flipping the safeties off, as well as raising up the peephole sight, he leaned out of cover, staring down the sight at the entrance to the room.

Now slowly regrouping was a force of at least twenty soldiers, all equipped with assault rifles. Having been pinned down by Hertzog's sporadic fire, and having only one way to enter into the room itself, they now were slowly moving forwards, rifles raised. This couldn't have been more that perfect for Helmuth, aiming directly for the center of the group of faceless infantry. Depressing the trigger on the launcher, a great gout of flame licked at his back from the rear of the weapon, followed by a great whoosh as the high explosive/dual purpose rocket accelerated at the group.

Taking cover the second after the rocket left the launcher's barrel, Helmuth was spared the sight of an 90mm anti-tank rocket slamming into a group of people before detonation. He was sadly not spared the sickening sound of blood, gore, and limbs being thrown this way and that with a splatter after the explosion. Nor was he spared the sound of a few quick screams, followed soon after by loud screams from those who had survived whatever Hell had kept them alive.

Freezing at these noises, Helmuth shuddered in on himself, shouldering the launcher on his back while Hertzog stepped out from behind the casket's cover. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply, the cacophony of sounds assaulting his ears and puncturing his mind. All those men, screaming because of what he had done. Would it have been easier if they all died quickly? Some of them could have been –

He was startled as gunfire rang out once more. However, it was not the sound of combat, but rather Hertzog, walking to the sight of the carnage, executing the remainder of the enemy. Helmuth chose not to watch, huddling closer into himself.

When Hertzog returned, Helmuth tried to cover up a sob, before he was pulled to his feet.

A sharp pain raced across his face as she slapped him, jolting him, and she gave him a pitying smile.

"The first time around is a different kind of Hell," she merely stated, echoing her words fifteen minutes prior, "but you get used to it after a while. Now, we're still on a mission here. Whoever those thugs were, they came in here to kill. I've contacted the Hive, and they're pulling Muhlkampf out. Mannheim is KIA, and we'll be pulled next, so get your headset on. When they give the signal, we'll be back and you can rest, ok?"

She gently pat his shoulder, before pulling him in for a hug.

"You were damn fine for your first time around," she explained, "I've had NCOs in the _Heer_ who shat their pants at the first sign of combat, but you kept it together until the end."

"It was – it was easy," Helmuth answered truthfully, hiccupping, "It was just like a game, but they're – they're… I know this'll sound, sound insane, but does it get easier?"

Hertzog shook her head. "Nope. For some it never will."

This caused Helmuth to droop a bit, but he silently slipped his earpiece back in, listening to the chatter from the radio for a bit. He quietly stepped off to the side a moment later, retching.

A half minute later, Dr. Schiessman's voice rang through.

~ _Muhlkampf secure, get ready for transport you two._ ~

"Roger that," Hertzog responded, standing still. "Ready for relay, Hertzog and von Trotha, let's get home Command."

A burst of light, the feeling of knives, and Helmuth saw nothing more.

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It was a week later that saw Helmuth and Elma reunited with Muhlkampf, who had spent some time in the infirmary due to injuries he had sustained in the mission. The man had looked worse for wear, slightly unshaven and with a stitch across his left eyebrow. The three of them had met up in the mess hall, and quietly swapped accounts of what had happened. For Helmuth and Elma, Muhlkampf commended the two for grabbing things that could be used, and how tacitly they handled the situation. When Hertzog tried to pry Muhlkampf about what had happened to Mannheim, he did nothing but ask Helmuth:

"It wasn't nothing, was it Green?"

When Helmuth replied that it had been nothing, the veteran nodded – looking twice his age – before continuing on, purposefully averting Elma's question.

Helmuth's snag in that mission – the school uniform – had been snatched from Hertzog's kit the second they returned to the base. It was whisked away by a team of shrinks, never to be seen again by the duo. Nevertheless, a day before they were tasked with another "outing", Helmuth got a surprise in the mail at his apartment.

Mail from his older brothers, Emil and Benjamin, which surprised him.

In the first package, Emil merely wrote that he was proud his little brother had finally managed to stand on his own, congratulating him on getting a job away from his family. He wished to see him on some holidays, but he knew that the new job Helmuth had was a busy one, being a secretary at GKI for one of the head scientists.

Benjamin, on the other hand, stated what a pussy he was for running away from his problems. However, he conceded that sometimes one needed time away from the issues of the world, and needed another lease on life for a bit. But really, a secretary? Couldn't you have gotten a better job as something else? Also, your younger sisters miss you already, don't forget to send them a letter or you'll make them sad, you _Fotze_.

The letters were also accompanied by two packages, one from each brother.

From Emil, came – surprisingly – his esteemed hunting rifle, the _Eberkönig_. It had been Emil's first ever hunting rifle, back when father had taken his three sons on regular hunting trips in the fall. A triple-barreled Hasselvander rifle/shotgun combo, it was almost the entire length of Helmuth's height ending just slightly short of his neck. The metal of the barrel was a sterling silver, with inlays grafted into the pinewood stock. There was a reason Emil called it the Boar King after all, he had put hundreds of CUDs into modifying it. Instead of the regular 7.92mm rifle round and the two 12 gauge rounds it fired, the third barrel that sat under the double shotgun barrels had been enlarged and rechambered for 12 gauge.

From Benjamin came his first revolver: _Mitternachtskönigin_ , the Midnight Queen. Originally it had been a simple 9x33mm Rimmed revolver from Doerr, but much like his older brother, Benjamin had put money into it. The barrel had been lengthened to nine inches, and weighted, the action had been replaced to be double-action, and the grip had been replaced with a more ergonomic handle. The biggest changes however, had been to the finish on the revolver, and the caliber. The caliber had been upgraded from its original 9x33mm round to the impressively large .454 _Vergoldung_ round, adding tat extra amount of oomph to each shot. The finish on the other hand had been deeply blued, so much so that it was almost blacked, only a slight pearlescent showing off the deep blue.

Both of these weapons were accompanied by a smaller letter from both brothers, explaining that if anything were to happen, to use both the Midnight Queen and the Boar King to protect himself, and to keep both weapons safe.

Making a promise to do so, Helmuth quickly penned a letter for the whole family, explaining he was well and all, and he'd try and write twice a month at least. He wrote to his sisters that he was ok, and, if it were possible, he'd love to have them over to his Neo-Brunhammer apartment to visit.

The next day brought even more gifts for Helmuth. New things from the R&D Department at GKI were presented to the now three-man squad, and they were explained to the trio.

"The first one," explained a nondescript scientist, holding up a buzzing battery filed with wires and filaments, "is an Active Relay Location device, or an ARL if you want. Simply put, this is a one-way trip back to the Hive if you feel your life is in critical danger. You simply stab this plunger here," he pointed to the tri-pronged plunger on one end, "before depressing the button on the other end and the ARL will zap you away back here."

The other device was an earpiece and microphone to go with their gasmask, as well as a wrist-computer. As the scientist explained, "This is a Universal Translation Device, the UTD. All you grunts need to know is that the wrist-computer will run through a select amount of languages installed in it until it finds the right one, where then what ever you will input into the microphone will be sent out as the selected language. On the other end, anything that is heard by the UTD will be translated back into our native language and be heard by you through the earpiece."

"Impressive," groused Muhlkampf, "These would've been useful on the D-002 trip."

"I'll have you know that the information you collected that mission helped craft these," the scientist replied. "And it took us quite a while to get everything in working order, even if these are prototypes."

" _Danke_ , then," Helmuth responded with a nod, "I'm sure these will help us perfectly on the next outing."

"Alright, enough dallying," Hertzog stated, "I got that itch to go again, so come on! Let's get going!"

"Where exactly are we going today?" Helmuth asked plainly, securing the tech onto his body before equipping his mask.

"D-005-1," came Muhlkampf's muffled voice, "Standard op as usual, except we're gonna be sticking together this time around."

"Good to know," Helmuth laughed as they entered the Hive," I'll be glad to have you by my side this time around _Herr_ Muhlkampf."

"Back at it again with this _Herr_ crap, eh Green?" Muhlkampf replied with a chuckle, "Cut it out, will you?"

"Sure, sure."

The radio checks – just like last time – went through, only an awkward pause when glancing over Mannheim's spot since he was no longer there. Nevertheless, Arcadius whirred to life, whining like a engine that needed a serious oiling, before the sensation of knives pierced Helmuth's entirety, bathing him in the light once more as the trio disappeared to the next great adventure.

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Cracking his eyes open with a painful groan, Helmuth shook himself awake, before standing up. Beside him were both Muhlkampf and Hertzog, which was good, and a quick glance around showed that they were currently in a bar.

A former bar at that, if the flames licking at the back walls was anything to go by. The windows looking outside were covered in silt and soot, which Helmuth found out as he used his gloved hand to wipe at them.

~ _Sitrep._ ~ Came Muhlkampf's voice over the radio.

~ _Alles gut._ ~ Both Helmuth and Hertzog replied, readying their weapons.

~ _Good to hear._ ~ Muhlkampf responded, looking to the fire, then the door. ~ _Think that shotgun will be of use Green?_ ~

~ _Well, considering they didn't give me a launcher like last time,_ ~ Helmuth began, jostling the _Eberkönig_ which was slung on his back, ~ _I sure fucking hope so. Else we might be screwed if we encounter armour._ ~

~ _Here's hoping not._ ~ Hertzog joked, before moving to the entrance and pushing it open.

Steadily filing out of the burning building – A bar named Copenhagen, Helmuth noted – the trio were greeted to Hell on Earth.

All around them the city was burning. Carcasses covered the streets, both skeletal and some not so much. Vehicles were upturned, windows were smashed open on buildings, papers – on fire or not – blew through the air. When the trio unclasped their masks, they were greeted to the stench of burnt flesh and smoke. The entire place looked like a war zone. The only thing that drew visible confusion on Muhlkampf's face – Helmuth was, once again, off to the side retching at the stench – was the complete lack of noise. No screams, no gunfire, no one or anything at all. It was…

Quiet.

And then Helmuth turned his attention down the street, to where a sharp whistling then filled his ears.

Set upon the back drop of a soot, smoke covered, and dusky red sky, spears of blood lanced towards them.

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 **Woof, spicy.**

 **Was that a reference in Dimension-004? Who knows?**

 **Also, it totally was a reference. Why wouldn't I? We won't know what the heck happened to Muhlkampf and Mannheim until later, in the grand scheme of things I suppose. Muhlkampf will probably explain everything next chapter after Helmuth pries some more, after all they're teammates, right?**

 **Also, with this who interdimensional project idea I got going on, that opens up my universe to several others, some of which we might see in separate fics later on down the line if I feel up to it. And if you all wanna see them, of course. Anyways, I should go now. Thanks for reading!**

 **Remember to follow, favourite, and review please! I absolutely love to respond to commenters! If you got questions I'd love to answer them!**

 **Ciao!**


	4. Kapitel-IV Der König ist jetzt an Bord

**Well, here we are. Chapter Four.**

 **Another 4k chapter cranked out in a week. Good stuff me. Glad I'm still on this.**

 **Anyways, we're continuing where we left off from last chapter: An ominous red glow in the sky. I hope you'll enjoy this.**

 **As for comments, well:**

 **Slayer-410: Thanks my dude, I appreciate the fact that someone wants to see more of my own, home-made world. I'll try to incorporate more of it in some chapters.**

 **Word count was 4,616.**

 **Now then, onwards with the chapter!**

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"What did you expect?" – Talking

'A war like no other?' – Thought

" _Der Teufel selbst_?" – Very bad Google Translate, or emphasis on speech

' _Or just a bad dream_?' – Written word

~ _Maybe it was nothing at all._ ~ – Radio Chatter

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The man lowered his weapon, staring out through the raging fires and stifling smoke wafting above the city. From his position on one of the tallest buildings in the city, he could fire imprudently in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle with ease. Coupled with his weapon, and his excellent aim, it was no luck that leveled his hand after he fired upon the group of survivors that had exited a burning building to the north.

Sighing deeply as he deemed that another volley was unnecessary, he turned to the east, where another group had previously defended against his initial volley.

He readied his weapon again, before giving pause and lowering. It was unnecessary as well, as that duo were headed to link up with a lone survivor who was slowly being surrounded by some of the turned denizens of the former city. They'd be taken care of in short time.

Still, for a total of six survivors – five now, he reminded himself, that last volley had felled one of the three there – to pop up was a tad bit unnerving. He had expected the cataclysmic event to have wiped all living humans off the face of the country, or the city at least. For a select few to have survived put his whole plan in jeopardy.

Not to mention that blue bastard running about as well.

Still, he had time to kill. Those survivors would perish soon enough.

His King demanded it, after all.

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Helmuth awoke – slowly, painfully – to an incessant ringing. And pain. Pain was there too. His head hurt, he could taste copper in his mouth, and his ears were ringing. Cracking open an eye, the more operational parts of his mind noted he was back in the bar. The rest of it screamed for that part to shut the fuck up as damage control was worked on. He was on his back, that was for sure, as more of the pain came from there in terms of the rest of his body.

Still, for some reason he felt he needed to get up.

What had happened? Where were Hertzog and Muhlkampf? Why could he feel blood trickling down both side of his head? Who was saying his suit had been punctured?

A fuzzy image moved into his view, looking at him from a crouch.

"Hertzog?" He lisped when the blur waved a hand in front of his eye.

Damn this ringing. He couldn't figure out if this person was talking.

"Hertzog?" He lisped again, trying to sit himself up, only to gasp as a sharp pain lance up his right arm.

The person pushed him gently back down, stabbing something into his left arm. The pain lessened, while the ringing remained the same.

"Muh – My arm…" Helmuth continued to lisp, tapping on his right arm, " _Warum - warum kann ich meinen Arm nicht bewegen? Warum tut es weh?_ Is it – is it still there…?"

The blur, which was steadily increasing in clarity until Helmuth could see that it was indeed Hertzog, nodded, saying something which Helmuth couldn't hear.

She reached over to his right shoulder, grabbing something that caused lightning to lance once more up his arm. He swore at her as she tossed whatever it had been aside, before wrapping the arm in gauze and medical tap.

" _Nein - ich kann nichts hören_ ," Helmuth slurred, shaking his head lightly. "The ringing, stop it, please."

He laid there for a bit longer, Hertzog getting up and returning with a bottle of beer, cracking it open after sitting Helmuth up against a booth. The two sat like that for a bit. The fire, which had mostly fizzled out on the back wall, crackled lightly as Helmuth's hearing slowly returned to him.

When the ringing had lessened to an acceptable degree, he lolled his head to her, speaking.

"Where's Muhlkampf?"

When she didn't respond, Helmuth tried again, only to get her to glance at him with teary eyes.

"Ah," he slurred, "M'bad… What – what happened to us? I remember… _Rot_?"

Silence reigned for a few seconds, the cackling of burning timber echoing in the bar, before Hertzog replied with a hiccup.

"I don't know…" She began, wiping unshed tears from her eyes, "I remember you yelling something, incoming maybe, before I was flung a hundred meters back due to the explosion. When I finally got the wind back in my lungs, and got up, I couldn't find Muhlkampf or you. The entire street was destroyed, and I thought you both… You both…"

She paused, trying to regain herself, before continuing.

"I couldn't find neither of you, but I heard groaning from in here, and found you by the back wall," she explained, looking towards where the fire still cackled. "I pulled you away from it, and dragged you to the centre of the room. I spent ten minutes looking for a first aid kit at the bar itself, and by then you were lucid again and I got to work patching you up. You're a mess right now Helmuth. You've got slight burns, small cuts and lacerations because of glass, you had a large chunk of some lodged in your shoulder and you're bleeding from the head."

"Are you okay then Hertzog?" Helmuth asked after a beat.

"I think so," she responded, "I might have a concussion, but I'm a lot less hurt than you are."

"But you're ok?" Helmuth pressed.

"I – Yes, I'm fine."

"Good, good."

It was quiet while they relaxed, the crackling of fire and dying embers in the building creating a somewhat soothing atmosphere as Elma worked on letting the adrenaline lower in her system, while Helmuth tried to get the fuzz out of his head. Eventually, he stood, helping Hertzog up before making his way over to the bar itself and pilfering a bottle and unbroken tumbler. Turning to her as he poured a shot, he motioned to her radio.

"What's the Hive been saying?" He asked as he downed the shot, grimacing at the taste.

"I – I haven't a clue," Elma responded, glancing at the radio equipment on her back, "Muhlkampf was the only one who was allowed to have his on, as per orders, but…"

" _Er ist tot_ ," Helmuth finished, pouring another shot.

The two grimaced.

As per operation orders, two people were to carry the specialized equipment necessary to contact the Hive through dimensions; in this case it was both Hertzog and Muhlkampf. Both of them were to have the devices on, in case of separation of the unit. However, with Mannheim's disappearance/MIA status due to the last mission, Dr. Schiessman had advised against them running both radio sets at the same time, as that would drain much needed battery life. Therefore, Hertzog had her set turned off before the mission, and for the past half hour or so they've been without contact with the Hive – their command effectively.

" _Scheiße_ ," Helmuth murmured, setting another shot up, "what do you think we should do then Hertzog? You're effectively the highest-ranking officer here now, do you want to boot that thing up and call the Hive?"

She sputtered as he downed the shot he set up, "I – how can you be so nonchalant about this? Why are you drinking at a time like this?!" She yelled, grabbing him by the front of his shirt. "We've lost Muhlkampf, we haven't been in contact with the Hive and they probably – no, they definitely think we're dead! And we were attacked by an unknown assailant who could be coming to finish us off! How are you even drinking, let alone being so calm?!"

Helmuth shrugged, pocketing the bottle. "Simple. I'm not."

"What?"

"I'm not calm," he continued, staring Hertzog in the eyes, "In fact, I'm freaking the fuck out at the moment on the inside. We're in a hostile territory, we've basically had our heads cut off with the loss of our commanding officer and lack of communication with our headquarters, and this is basically the second time I've been in a combat scenario. How in the ever-loving fuck could I not be on the verge of shitting myself Hertzog? Why do you think the first cognitive thing I did was a grab a bottle of alcohol? My survival instinct is to grab the nearest bottle and get myself drunk enough to cope with the stress."

"Adding on to the fact," he continued, now behind the bar and looting more bottles, "that not only have we sustained injuries and I am in pain, this is a civilian area. There's a damn good chance that there's possible survivors out there that could use our help." He paused, taking a breath, before shaking his head. "What're our orders? Intel gathering and contact the locals, that's why I asked what you wanted to call on this. Do we contact the Hive to pull us out, or do we continue on with the mission? It's a damned question I need you to answer as the acting officer. _Bitte_ …"

Elma winced. "That's a terrible way to cope," she began, getting a glare as she added, "drinking like that at your age. But, I guess you're right. Fuck if this isn't screwed in some way, the whole thing."

Helmuth laughed at that.

"Alright, let me get this thing up and running, and we'll contact the Hive for orders," Hertzog finished, throwing the radio backpack on a barstool. "And then we'll move out."

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Ten minutes later saw a frustrated Elma and a lightly sloshed Helmuth listening to static on their mask radios. This had been going on for five minutes or so after Hertzog managed to get the radio system itself working, and even with her constantly flipping dials and changing channels, nothing changed.

Growling with frustration, Hertzog slammed her hand on the bar top, before slinging the radio system onto her back.

"Fuck it," she said, grabbing her rifle and readying it, "We'll need to be elsewhere for whatever this damned interference to go away before it'll work. Get your shit, let's go."

Finishing his tenth shot so far, Helmuth reached for his MP10 only to fall short. Musing to himself that he must have lost it in the blast earlier, he withdrew _Mitternachtskönigin_ from her holster, unlocking the chamber and checking her ammo before locking it with a flick of his wrist. Clasping his gasmask back onto his face fully, he nodded to Elma, who had done the same.

Fully armed, the duo made their way out of the bar, before Helmuth spotted something glinting in the street. Quietly making his way over to it from behind Hertzog, who was continuing down the sidewalk with her rifle raised, Helmuth was silently stunned when he saw it was Muhlkampf's ARL device, although he was saddened when he saw that the device hadn't been activated. Pausing for a moment, he pocketed it and attached it to his own in their holster, before sliding back into place behind Hertzog, revolver ready.

They made their way down the abnormally quiet streets, making it down several blocks before anything of note happened. That note was in fact a scream sounding from off in the distance, which caused Hertzog to look back to Helmuth.

Shrugging, he took lead, the two of them hurrying at a brisk pace towards the sounds of the scream. It was further off to the southeast, a little way away from where there were by the sounds of the echo, and Helmuth estimated that they'd get to the location within a ten-minute time frame, give or take. Getting close proved troublesome however, as debris and crashed cars blocked some of the avenues of approach to the southeast. Nevertheless, the duo managed to make their way around via alleyways and unblocked roadways.

Quite suddenly, Helmuth bumped into something as he turned a corner, close to where he thought where the screams had come from. That something had in fact been a someone, a woman, who had been running in the opposite direction had collided into Helmuth, not seeing him as he had turned the corner with his weapon raised. And, Helmuth supposed as he saw what she was running from, it was for a good enough reason.

Two dozen feet behind her were ten or so shambling corpses, ghouls and skeletons armed with weapons.

Barely even blinking as he recoiled from the weight of the woman crashing into him, Helmuth merely wrapped his left arm around her, raising _Mitternachtskönigin_ towards the first ghoul, and pulling the trigger.

The resounding boom echoed throughout the dead city, and the recoil from the revolver's .454 caliber round almost tore the damned thing from Helmuth's grip. However, his aim had been true, and the corpse on the rightmost of the line exploded into a fine mist. Pushing the woman behind him, he gripped _Mitternachtskönigin_ with both hands, steadying himself as he put the revolver's barrel back onto target, letting another echo rip through the street. Quickly felling another of these enemies, Helmuth was glad to hear the bark of Hertog's G4 rifle as it too joined the fray. A few more cracks of Hertzog's rifle and echoing booms of Helmuth's sidearm brought an end to the attack.

Within seven or so seconds, the entirety of the enemy had been dispatched, surprising Helmuth as it had felt at least a little bit longer than that, surely. However, before he could chalk it up to something like adrenaline, Hertzog had already turned on the person they had inadvertently saved.

She was hyperventilating, watching the two of them with frightened eyes. Wearing an intricate black and gold blazer overtop of a white shirt and skirt, she was covered in a light layer of grim and sweat, causing some of her platinum blonde hair to stick to her face. Helmuth noted with surprise that she had managed to outrun those… things… in a pair of high heels, no easy feat. Still, a survivor was good news. She meant that there could be more out there, even with those _untota_ shambling about.

Casting a quick glance to Hertzog, Helmuth unclasped his mask, revealing his face to the woman who appeared startled that a human face lay behind the mask. Nevertheless…

" _Hallo_ ," Helmuth began slowly, not knowing if she'd understand him, " _Ich bin Helmuth_ , _bist du?_ "

She made as if to straighten herself, unsticking some hair from her face before standing up straight, the frightened way she acted before almost completely disappearing in a snap.

In almost perfect Yytusche, she responded without haste. " _Ich bin_ Olga Marie Animusphere _, Direktorin der Chaldäischen Verteidigungsorganisation_. Who are you, and how did you even get here?"

"A pleasure to meet you _Frau_ Animusphere," Helmuth began, startled at both her rudeness and how she spoke Yytusche.

"I already introduced myself, but I am Helmuth von Trotha and this is my colleague, Elma Hertzog. We're members of _Großes Kraterinstitut für technologische Fortschritte_ 's Interdimensional Exploration Unit." He explained, running through the required information to give in a first encounter meeting. "Hertzog and I, along with another, arrived in this dimension only an hour or so, and you're the first living being we've run into. Do you know if there are any other survivors around at all, or are you all that's left?"

"I… I don't know," she began, shaking her head, "I don't even know how I managed to get here in the first place. But still, you shouldn't be here either! The singularity should have only allowed members of Team A here, not some random nobodies!"

Off to the side, Hertzog murmured a quiet "Oi", before Animusphere continued.

She angrily shook the watch on her wrist, looking around in a slight panic. "Where even are they anyways? They should've been here to help me, otherwise I would've been attacked by those things! Damn it, why won't anyone answer!"

Still blinking in confusion, Helmuth paused, looking closer at the watch. A second later – as the woman continued to grumble angrily – he realized that it was like his own wrist computer, capable of interdimensional telecommunications.

"Excuse me again, _Frau_ Animusphere," He began, waving Hertzog over, "That watch of yours is a communication device, right? Elma here and I have been trouble contacting our own base, there's some sort of interference acting up. Try as we might we can't contact anyone either, and that might be the problem you have as well."

"An interference you say? That might explain it… Oh, I wish I knew if someone from Chaldea was here," she lamented, sighing. "If there was, I'd be able to possibly set up a more direct channel with Chaldeas…"

"Until then, I'd like to propose that we'd stay with you _Frau_ Animusphere," Hertzog stated, scanning the rooftops with her rifle, "We've already come under attack once, and so have you. If we keep off the major streets, and stay alert, we'll have a better chance at surviving."

"Very well then." Animusphere agreed, nodding to the both of them, "Let us be off then; we should head for the harbour, that place will have the biggest chance of running into anyone form Chaldeas."

The now trio-sized group quickly grouped up, beginning their methodical journey towards the port, weapons at the ready.

A few feet after they start, Helmuth – seeking to try and have a conversation to break the silence – withdrew his semi-automatic pistol from its holster, handing it over to Animusphere.

She merely looked at it, outstretched in his hand towards her, before scoffing. "What do you think you're doing, handing me this?"

"You've got no weapons," Helmuth replied, stating the obvious. "I'd feel much calmer with something capable of doing damage against any enemies we run into in your hands. You'd be able to keep yourself safe in case of something happening, _ja_?"

"As if," she merely scoffed, "A magus is never without a weapon." She raised her right hand, showing Helmuth a grouping of pebbles that lay in her palm.

Helmuth raised an eyebrow. "Pebbles?" He asked incredulously, before joking, "You really think pebbles are going to help against walking corpses?"

His joke caused her to sputter. "'Pebbles'?" She parroted back, "These aren't pebbles you plebeian! They're runestones! A Magus' best weapon!"

"There's that word again," Hertzog interjected, "What do you mean when you call yourself a magus?"

"Yeah, are you a wizard or something?" Helmuth joked, laughing. "Gonna use those runestones to summon a demon, like a fairy tale?"

"You be quiet pleb!" She yelled at Helmuth, before pulling a 180 attitude-wise towards Hertzog. "And yes, I am a Magus. That's what I mean when I call myself that. I am capable of many mystical things, like magic and summoning as your plebeian comrade so bluntly put it. I am a practitioner of Magecraft, or Thaumaturgy – which I suppose regular humans could classify as a sort of magical science." She explained, brushing some hair out of her face as they walked.

"However, I am not a magician, or a wizard as the plebeian put it. Magicians are capable of true miracles, like what Christ could do in the Bible. In fact, it is believed that Christ himself was a magician, as most of his 'holy' actions could be classified under that. Nevertheless, a magician is very rare today anyways, and most Magi are merely caught up in petty power struggles. I wouldn't worry yourself too much about the workings of a Magus, you're human after all."

"Interesting to know," Helmuth groused, scratching his chin, "Still, magic? Magecraft? I know this is a different dimension and all, but magic doesn't exist. I'd soon rather see the Echtkaiser return from the dead, at least that'd make sense."

Before either Hertzog could slap him for being an idiot, or Animusphere could berate him, a building off to their right in front of them exploded outward, sending a black blur out into the street. Helmuth and Hertzog both raised their weapons at the smoky blur, while Animusphere merely gave a girlish shriek and hide behind them both.

The smoke soon dissipated, revealing another shambling corpse, missing an arm.

Helmuth quickly fired a round from Midnight Queen into its skull, making it crumple anti-climatically to the ground.

Blinking owlishly, he stood waiting to see if anymore popped up, relaxing slightly before tensing again as the sounds of fighting came from the now ruined building the corpse had been thrown out of.

Nodding to Hertzog, he moved forward as she stood behind to protect Animusphere, making his way over to the building. Peering inside, he noticed a horde of shambling ghouls deeper into the building, some being flung back by a large, cross shaped shield momentarily, before surging forward again. More survivors.

Holstering the revolver, he reached over his back for the shotgun slung there, the _Eberkönig_ , and put it to his shoulder. He slowly stepped over the broken glass of the storefront window, stepping inside and behind the horde. Every second he wasted, the horde got closer to the group of people in the back of the store, so he yelled.

"Hertzog, _achtung_!" He yelled, aiming at the back of the horde.

Having called out loudly to his partner, the rearmost of the horde turned to him, and he fired point blank into the undead group. He pulled the trigger, blasting a large chunk of the group apart in a split second. The retort from the blast of the first barrel echoed loudly in the building, causing the rest of the dead to turn to him, before he fired again, splattering the walls with ichor. The third salvo from the Boar King ripped a corpse in half at the waist, others falling as buckshot scattered into their faces.

In the far back of the room where the survivors were, Helmuth was happy to see the buckshot ricochet off the large shield, impacting into the room or floor around them.

Now empty, he broke the shotgun open, ejecting the empty shells before quickly reloading three back in just as Hertzog opened fire from her position at the storefront window. Closing the breech with a clack, Helmuth once more aimed at the horde and fired. Three more blasts – as well as the rifle fire from Hertzog's G4 – cut the horde down in size, until there was no more movement from the undead population in the building.

When it was all done, Helmuth lowered his shotgun slightly, looking at the group of survivors in the back who he assumed were hiding behind a counter there. The shield moved slightly, revealing a young woman with wide eyes and pinkish hair staring owlishly at him. She wore some sort of armour that – for the life of him – Helmuth couldn't really understand why she'd be wearing it. It was rather skimpy.

"Is everyone alright miss?" Helmuth asked, concerned.

The woman didn't answer him, turning her head to behind the counter and speaking soft enough that he couldn't hear her.

Idly, he wondered how a woman of her stature – rather lithe and small – could carry a shield taller than himself and not break a sweat.

"Miss?" He asked again, lowering his weapon more, "Is everyone alright? No one's hurt?"

Rather than answering, she continued to speak with whoever was behind the counter.

Before he could ask a third time, a black-haired man poked his head out from behind the counter, giving a thumbs up. He then stood up, brushing some soot off from his white uniform – a double-breasted jacket of some sort – before speaking with the woman.

Helmuth sighed. This was a bit tedious, in actuality…

Behind him, Hertzog helped Animusphere into the ruined store, where both the man and woman caught sight of the two.

The woman's face brightened, before she called out "Director!", while the man smiled softly.

Animusphere, on the other hand, merely grew confused, before sputtering. "Kyrelight?! What are you doing here? Is that Candidate Forty-Eight? Why's he here as well?"

The woman continued to speaking walking over past Helmuth to Animusphere, talking a mile a minute. From his wrist, Helmuth's wrist computer beeped twice, before the unintelligible language the two were speaking filtered into Helmuth's own national speech. Glancing down at it, he merely shrugged. Must be that translator thing.

Feeling a tap on his shoulder, Helmuth looked up to see the man standing next to him. Now that he got a closer look however, Helmuth noted that he was a young teenager rather than an adult.

"Thank you," he said, "If you hadn't gotten here when you did, I don't think we would've survived."

"No worries," Helmuth replied, glancing around the store, "You're okay, the two of you?"

"Yeah, no thanks to you." He answered, scratching his head. "Where are my manners though. Ritsuka Fujimaru, Chaldean Master."

"Helmuth von Trotha, GKI Interdimensional Scout."

"What's this about survivors?" Hertzog's voice interjected, halting Animusphere's talk with the Fujimaru's acquaintance.

"Ah, sorry," the girl stated, shifting nervously. "I was just explaining to the Director that we're the only ones from Chaldea so far, but we've found survivors of this singularity. They're holed up upstairs. Senpai and I have been trying to keep them safe, and we were almost overrun had it not been for you."

Survivors…

"How many?" Helmuth asked, causing the girl – Kyrelight – to turn to him in surprise.

"Um, about twenty or so sir."

"Can you take us to them?"

"Now hang on a minute," Animusphere interrupted, "Where are the other Masters from Chaldea? A Team should be here, shouldn't they? You should have linked up with them when you rayshifted here! Also, why are you dressed like that?"

"Uh, actually Director," Fujimaru stated plainly, "We don't know what happened to A Team. There were several explosions in the Rayshift Room and several other places before we were rayshifted here, and I don't know if anyone survived. For all we know, we're all that's left of Chaldea."

Animusphere came short. "W-What? Have you tried contacting Chaldeas at all?"

"We haven't Director," Kyrelight answered, "We've been too busy trying to keep the survivors we found safe."

"Well come on then," came the huffed reply, "Let's get to the roof of this damn place. Bring those survivors with you, we'll contact Chaldeas from the roof."

With a quick glance, Helmuth shrugged at Hertzog. The two now seemed as if they were going to be brought along for the ride to whatever the Hell was going on with this Chaldea place.

The due and Animusphere were quickly guided by Kyrelight and Fujimaru to a blocked stairwell, where the skinny Kyrelight surprised the two of them by lifting a large countertop out of the way, before ushering them up to the second floor.

Opening the door to the floor, Helmuth was greeted by the sight of twenty to thirty soot-covered survivors, all huddled around themselves as they stared at the group that entered. Off to the side, a police officer lowered his pistol, before exclaiming his happiness at both Fujimaru and Kyrelight surviving.

Sharing a look with Hertzog, the two of them realized things just got slightly more complicated with these survivors in the mix.

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Deep within a cavernous expanse, a King and the Man in Red stood watchful, staring over the bubbling mud of the open chasm before them. The Grail War was almost at an end. All that remained was Caster, and then their dreams would be realized.

That's what the Grail promised them, after all…

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 **And that's Chapter Four at a close!**

 **Hoo boy, did I get stumped on some parts of this chapter. Mainly how to handle Olga Marie, as I'm not really familiar on how she acts really. I know she's uptight for sure, but she's a complicated character with fears and niceness in her.**

 **Also, the enemy has been introduced in the form of the shambling skeletons – upgraded to zombies now – and the unnamed Archer.**

 **I've changed how Singularity F will be going. The introduction of survivors – and the possibility of more of them – will add a pressuring challenge to our heroes as they go about the Singularity. Truth be told, when I read about the Fuyuki Fire of the Fourth Grail War, I wondered if people could've survived it underground, and considering what we see of Fuyuki in FGO, the buildings are still standing rather that being eaten by the fire. So why wouldn't there be survivors?**

 **Anyways, now Helmuth and Elma are allied with Mash, Ritsuka, and Olga, hopefully bolstering their chances before they run into a blackened servant. The addition of firearms might seem OP – for now – but servants are way more powerful than mere buck and bullets. We'll have to see what other tricks the soldaten from GKI have up their sleeves.**

 **Anyways, as always, review, leave a follow or a favourite if you like my work! I really do appreciate the emails I get saying someone is following this fic.**

 **Ciao!**


	5. Kapitel-V Der Blauhund von Ulster

**So, this was a bit late, sorry about that. I had a surprisingly large amount of writer's block on this, as I can't really write dialogue between characters that well. I've been told by a friend who I had read this over that my pacing with speech is kind of bad, so I'm trying to remedy that. But still, writer's block struck me for a bit on this, and I only really got work on it down of the evening of the 28** **th** **, so I kind of rushed through it.**

 **There is a lot of exposition from both sides in this chapter. It establishes some things about the current world – Singularity F – as well as stuff about Helmuth's home world, and Chaldea, what with their magic voodoo bull crap. And by exposition, I mean a lot of written and spoken word from all parties. We get to meet the survivors closer, as well as see some friction between the Chaldeans and Yytuskians on opposing moral values throughout, and see that something is watch the group closely – whether that is good or bad is to be seen, however.**

 **I should mention that, come November, I will be partaking in NaNoWriMo, to get started on my first novel. So, there won't be any updates for MiST in that timeframe. Sorry.**

 **This chapter was a bit shorter than usual, about 3,368 in total. Please remember to read, review, and follow! I want someone to ask questions…**

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"What did you expect?" – Talking

'A war like no other?' – Thought

" _Der Teufel selbst_?" – Very bad Google Translate, or emphasis on speech

' _Or just a bad dream_?' – Written word

~ _Maybe it was nothing at all._ ~ – Radio Chatter

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Helmuth scratched his head as he sat beside Hertzog. The two had – for the past half hour or so – been trying to get Hertzog's communications system to operate without interference on the roof of the department store that they had cleared out two hours before. So far, the two had absolutely no luck, as static kept interfering with any chance of contacting the Hive, and while they weren't exactly worried per say, there were several new developments on this mission that they needed to relay to the command chain.

Survivors.

Specifically, twenty-one survivors in total had been on the second floor when Fujimaru and Kyrelight had brought them upstairs. There were four families – the Hirokazus, Genjos, Nissho, and Akihito respectively – with children, high schoolers, that had been huddled together when Helmuth and Elma had first seen them. The rest were first responders, surprisingly, having been called to an issue just down the street when they said the fire rolled across the town.

Another piece to a very strange puzzle that was. According to the Akihito family, who had been on the street outside moments before the catastrophe had occurred, a strange feeling had grown in the air, like electricity, and the smell of ozone had grown considerably until the fires flashed down from the mountainside to the west. The five first responders added onto that, as the fire rolled down the street, they explained it acted both as a pyroclastic flow of a volcanic eruption – which they first thought it was – and napalm. The people it barely touched, singed, or slightly burnt, it clung to. It clung to them and grew along their flesh until it consumed them. A terrifying thought for sure.

As to how the twenty-one survivors had managed to live where everyone else had not, Officer Mitsunari – the officer who had originally met them with his weapon drawn – explained that they had retreated to the basement of the store, where they had locked themselves in the steel vault of the bank next door. The vault door had held, and when all was said an done they retreated here. There Officer Mitsunari had run into Fujimaru and Kyrelight outside, battling ghouls, and had helped them ward off the undead.

And now, with the arrival Helmuth, Hertzog, and Animusphere, the group's number had rose from twenty-one to twenty-six. And that was the problem Hertzog and Helmuth were trying to fix.

Having spoken about the issue, both Helmuth and Elma agreed that trying to move the group of survivors across the city was a very dangerous option they had no choice but to take. Until they could get in contact with the Hive and use the relay system to teleport the survivors to safety, they'd have to hoof it on foot – dangerous, with whatever corpse still walked the street. And if they bunched up, whoever had rain that explosive fire upon them when they had first arrived would deal serious damage to the group. A no-win situation.

Still, as they worked on the communication pack, there was still a little bit of hope.

Off to their side, Animusphere, Kyrelight, and Fujimaru had managed to get in contact with their own base of operations. Sadly however, the base had apparently experienced some sort of terrorist attack, and were down 90% of their staffing capabilities from what the two Yytuskians heard. As it were, Animusphere was currently chewing out the interim Director, one Doctor Romani Archiman. It seemed that Fujimaru wasn't supposed to be here in this mess, rather, he was the forty-eight candidate to be chosen to venture here. The others were, indisposed from what Helmuth managed to gleam. Indisposed as in there was a good chance they were either outright dead, or cryogenically frozen by Doctor Archiman's orders to keep the remainder alive. Not a very bright outlook honestly.

Still, to lose 90% of the entire workforce at Chaldea was mindboggling. The attack would've either had to target a location in Chaldea where a large majority of the personnel were to be with one bomb, or there had to be several dozen strategically placed ones and most people were just caught in the blasts by accident.

From Doctor Archiman's report, the place was running on backup generator power until they could get the main reactor up, and they had about a hundred people left – cooks, engineers, researchers, and janitors – to get the place repaired. Although, if Helmuth and Hertzog were able to get to Chaldea with their allies, there was a good possibility that reinforcements could be called in from GKI to assist in repair and other such things. Now though, they just had to worry about surviving.

That and getting this damned communications device working without any outside interference.

"Director, we'll lose the connection in twenty seconds," Kyrelight announced suddenly, causing Helmuth to lift his head up in their direction.

~ _Alright then, listen,_ ~ Archiman explained, his form flickering in static from Fujimaru's communicator. ~ _There's a leyline intersection to the northeast from your location. Head there as fast as you can and set up so we can connect you again! Best of luck Director, Mash, Ritsuka!_ ~

A quick second later, Archiman's form completely flickered out, and Animusphere cursed.

"So much for that, Director," Fujimaru quipped.

Animusphere whirled her head to him, glaring him into silence.

When he was sufficiently cowed, she turned to Helmuth and Hertzog.

"I assume you understood all of that?" She said, crossing her arms with a huff.

Hertzog grunted, closing up her communication pack. She took a moment, slinging the heavy device onto her back once more, before picking up her G4 rifle.

" _Ja_ , for the most part," she began, turning her nose up at the Director, "Didn't understand anything about those leylines, but whatever. We're to follow you, yeah?"

"Hold on a second," Helmuth interrupted, "What about the survivors downstairs? They're coming with us, right?"

The shake of Animusphere's head told him all he needed to know.

"Chaldea's orders are to find the cause of this singularity and fix it," she explained, "A few civilians would just get in the way."

"A few? Listen lady, I don't know what to tell you since you can't count, but twenty-one people are 'a few'!"

Hertzog placed a hand on Helmuth's shoulder as he stood, "Helmuth – "

Helmuth cut her off, shaking her hand off his shoulder before continuing. "Twenty-one survivors. That's twenty-one souls you're willing to leave here to die, either by starvation or by one of those things prowling the streets! Do you have the guts to handle that, _Director_? If you do, then by all means use that pistol I gave you and do it yourself, it'll be a hell of a lot quicker for them!"

"How dare you!?" Animusphere yelled, "How dare you insinuate something like that! Don't you know what I have to do here? We have to end this singularity or it could cause untold damage! I have to worry about my employees here and back at Chaldea! I don't have the time to worry about a group of survivors! I have to worry about Chaldea, and what would happen if we fail here!"

Helmuth's lip upturned slightly. Whether it was the alcohol he had consumed a few hours before, or just something else like his morals, he wasn't going to let this go.

"Quite frankly Director, I don't care if you are trying to save the entire human race! That takes time, which we do not have. What we do have, is a group of people that need help now, instead of later. If you truly worried about your employees, and whatever this singularity is, then you can worry about the families downstairs."

His response caused her to falter, sputtering in anger and red in the face, before Fujimaru surprisingly cut into the argument.

"I'll have to agree with von Trotha-san, Director," the young man explained, "I know it may seem idealistic, but we have to try and save as many people as we can. That's what Chaldea stands for, right? The preservation of humanity?"

" _Und_ the preservation of humanity means all of humanity, wouldn't it, Director?" Hertzog added questioningly.

Animusphere seemed to wilt under the logic from her subordinate and Hertzog.

"Fine, fine!" She announced, throwing her hands up in the air, "The civilians can come with us. But make no mistake von Trotha, they are _your_ problem, you hear me? They're your responsibility to protect."

Smiling at having won, Helmuth merely nodded. "I wouldn't have it any other way _Frau_ Animusphere. By all means."

Hertzog huffed, glancing upwards. " _Gutt_ , now that that's out of the way… We're wasting daylight, what little we have with these clouds. Let's get a move on."

"I couldn't agree more," Fujimaru plainly stated. |Let's go then."

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It took the collective group ten minutes to gather everyone up and make their way to the first floor. The plan was easy enough, Kyrelight would take point alongside Hertzog, with Helmuth and Fujimaru behind them. They were then followed by Animusphere flanked by two police officers, and then the four families behind them in the middle of more police officers, firefighters wielding axes, and the paramedics bringing up the rear. With the officers equipped merely with pistols, and the paramedics and firemen with axes and bats, they group wasn't exactly equipped with large caliber firepower, but the shambling corpses outside could be easily dealt with via bludgeoning.

Therefore, when the group of twenty-six stealthily made their way out onto the street, they were met with silence. The hordes that had previously roamed the streets in decent numbers had vanished. Either they had shambled off elsewhere, or were now in hiding, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. With a ten-kilometer route to take, some of the unarmed members of the group were worried, but Officer Mistunari – who had surprisingly taken up the leader position of the civilians – calmed them. Now, they just had to get to the leyline area that was their destination.

Nervously, the group moved forward.

Not a sound echoed from the group – other than the sounds of their footsteps over broken asphalt and glass on the street. They made their way out onto a six-lane street, before turning to the right.

It was another five minutes before Hertzog finally struck up a conversation with the young woman carrying the massive shield next to her.

"So, _Frau_ Kyrelight," Elma began, scanning the rooftops with her rifle, "How's a girl like you able to carry something like that? Your shield, I mean. Must be heavy as shit."

" _Ano_ ," Kyrelight began with a blush, "Sorry Hertzog-san, but you can call me Mash. Kyrelight's too formal."

"Sorry, you can call me Elma then, Mash."

"Thank you, Elma-san," Mash replied, smiling slightly. "In response to your question, the answer is that I'm a demi-servant."

"A demi-servant? A sort-of-servant?"

"Yes. I'm half-human, half-servant."

Elma laughed, "You're going to have to explain the servant part to me Mash," she stated. "I'm not from this dimension, so I have no clue what that could mean."

"Sorry Elma-san. A servant is a mythical hero, summoned from the Throne of Heroes during a Holy Grail War," Mash explained, "Usually they're summoned as their legend, like King Arthur, or Robin Hood, with the full extent of their abilities to use. However, they're usually summoned from the Throne in an astral form, not with their flesh and blood bodies. In a Grail War, they're summoned by Masters, who supply prana and mana to keep their form tethered to the plant, as Gaia tries to slowly erase them from existence. In the Grail War, they fight each other until one is left standing, and they use the grail to get a wish alongside their master. But sometimes they can possess people under the right circumstances, bestowing their power and merging their soul with that person. And that's what happened to me, a servant bestowed they're powers on me when I was dying in Chaldea."

"You gave me a lot more questions then answers Mash," Elma answered after a brief pause, before patting the young woman's shoulder. "But I think we'll be able to get the full picture once we're out of this mess. But I think I understand what you meant. You're basically a super-powered human at the moment, powered by magic?"

Mash nodded.

"Well, ok then. Not the strangest thing I've seen honestly," Elma said. "Remind me when we get to Chaldea to tell you about my first mission. That'll blow your mind."

"I'll be certain to do that, Elma-san." Mash responded with a smile, before the two returned their attention back to scanning the rooftops and the streets in front of them.

Slowly, as they made their way up into the hills, small discussions grew between the group from the families, the now-acting guards, the Chaldeans, and the Yytuskians, about anything that could be talked about. Animusphere and Fujimaru struck up a conversation with Hertzog about GKI, asking about the organization and how it worked, while Helmuth slipped back to tread alongside Officer Mitsunari.

The two didn't chat about work, or anything in the such, rather, their attention was brought together by their respective firearms.

As Mitsunari explained, the nation of Japan – the country Helmuth and Hertzog were in – had very strict gun laws. So strict in fact, that most ordinary citizens didn't own a firearm. Rather, most of the weapons were either owned by the police forces or the yakuza, the mafia. It made sense, after all. The police were the police, and the yakuza would obviously get their weapons through illicit means. Still, Mitsunari explained that the weapons the police force had were mostly semi-automatic pistols and shotguns, and while he hadn't seen any yakuza arrested in Fuyuki before – they had been tightly controlled by the city's yakuza head, a Fujimaru ironically – he knew that yakuza busted in neighboring cities usually had handguns, sawn-off shotguns, and very rarely machine pistols.

When Helmuth asked about the Japanese military, he gathered a bit of shock from Mitsunari's answer.

"What the hell do you mean? You guys don't have an army? An airforce?"

"No," Mitsunari stated plainly, "We have a Self-Defense Force."

"A Self-Defense Force?"

"Mhm."

"And how the hell did that come about then?" Helmuth asked, flabbergasted. For a country to not have a military was mindboggling. Militaries were a big deal back home. Hell, Yytuskia had a year of compulsory military service at eighteen!

"Well," Mitsunari began, scratching his neck, "It happened a while back. You see, Japan originally had a military. In fact, we were an empire at that. But then, we got involved in the Second World War, and lost to the United States."

"Damn, a Second World War?" Helmuth whistled, "Back home we only had one, the Great War. But that only lasted about thirteen years. How'd you guys get beat?"

"Well, our war lasted about nine years, and we lost to the only use of atomic weapons on the planet," Mitsunari explained with a grimace. "I've been to Hiroshima, and I can easily say that I'm happy that the US only dropped two of those damn things on us. Hell, when this all started, I thought the North Koreans dropped a nuke on us. Fuyuki looks a lot like it took one."

"Ach, I know that. I've seen a blast sight as close as I could get," Helmuth admitted, shaking his head, "A city back home had its nuclear powerplant go critical and blow up, Mannerheim. Damn place had like, forty-thousand people living there when it did."

"Nuclear energy is a powerful thing. But, as I was saying, after Japan lost to the United States, the new government that was put in charge was a democratic one where our Emperor, Hirohito, sat as a mere ceremonial figure at the top. The new government was then strong-armed by the Americans into accepting Article Nine into the constitution, and this is where our lack of military stems from. In the article, it basically states that Japan could never have a standing army, however tensions between the US and the communist Soviet Union allowed revisions where Japan could have a standing 'Self-Defense Force' that could be used to only defend the country."

"That's both smart, and a load of horseshit," Helmuth bluntly stated. "The use of an SDF like that is the smart part, but I bet Japan's the only one in the world to have to hold that article. Damn, you have my condolences. If that was tried back home, on anyone, they'd be up in arms faster than you could say 'War's on again'! Especially if it was tried during the Great War, so many people would've – "

"Contact!"

Helmuth and Mitsunari's heads snapped up, their attention immediately turning towards the front of the marching column. There, Hertzog had her rifle raised at a cloaked figure at the next intersection over, while Kyrelight held her shield in a defense position next to her.

"Diamond formation!" Helmuth called out, raising the _Eberkönig_ while Mitsunari raised his service pistol. " _Schnell_! Protect the civilians!"

Mitsunari quickly gathered the civilians and first responders, while Helmuth moved forward to stand next to both Herztog and Kyrelight, Animusphere and Fujimaru behind the three of them.

" _Ein untoter_?" Helmuth inquired, to which Hertzog merely shook her head.

" _Nein_ , Mash here says it's like her, a servant."

"A what? Nevermind," Helmuth stated, squinting his eyes at the figure off in the smoky fog. "You think it's hostile?"

"Good chance there is."

"Alright, let's find another way around it. A back alley maybe? How close are we to our destination?"

"Click and a half."

"Uh, couldn't we just try and ask?" Fujimaru asked quietly.

Helmuth turned his head, looking at Fujimaru. "Would you have us all dead? There's a decent chance that whoever, or whatever, that is will be hostile. It'd be much easier for us to navigate around it instead of getting into a conflict and endangering the civilians."

Gunshots behind them rang out before Fujimaru could answer however, and the quintet were greeted to a small horde of corpses behind them, getting gunned and bludgeoned down by the first responders.

In a brutal efficiency, the fifteen-or-so men and woman shattered the wave of undead, police officers scoring headshots with their service pistols, while firefighters cleaved the shambling bodies with axes, and knives. Hell, even one of the paramedics got in on the fight with a broken broomstick, impaling an undead with it.

"Well, damn. You don't see that often. That's some damn good efficiency and teamwork right there."

Helmuth froze. Behind them!

Before he could even begin to move, Kyrelight had already shifted her entire body and that damned shield of hers around, slamming it into the ground right behind Helmuth. Cursing loudly, he brought the _Eberkönig_ around, bringing its barrels to bear at the figure who had merely jumped a few feet back.

The figure, now no longer obscured by the smoky air, was a tall man in a blue robe. Red eyes peered out from beneath a hood with white fur trim, and various runestone hung off parts of his clothing. A sharp-toothed grin smirked at them, while he dusted off some imaginary – or real – dirt off his shoulder.

"Although you know, if I was an enemy, you'd already be dead." He stated, now resting a wooden staff on his shoulder. "But damn if you all aren't the oddest group I've seen before."

"Then who the hell are you?" Animusphere inquired, keeping herself behind the protectiveness of Kyrelight's shield.

"Kinda rude to ask for a name without giving one yourself," the man said bluntly. "Still, who am I to talk about manners anyways?"

He bowed at the waist with a flourish, before righting himself and pulling back his hood.

Still grinning, he introduced himself. "Servant Caster, pleased to make all of your acquaintances."

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A decent distance away, on the rooftops, a figure watched the meeting below. This would make the Grail War just that tad bit interesting, now wouldn't it?

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 **Well shit, Cu Chulainn already? What's going on?**

 **Well, it's a fanfic for one. I get creative liberties in terms of plot movement. Second, just because they ran into the Blue Hound doesn't mean that they won't get into trouble sooner than later. Luck is steadily running out, slowly.**

 **Anyways, just to inform you in case you skipped the AN at the top, I'll be having this on hiatus during November for NaNoWriMo, as I'll be starting work on my novel. I'll possible have a small chapter out during the month in case I run into writer's block, but other than that don't expect much next month.**

 **Have a good time all! Try not to get too sick on sweets this All Hallows Eve, 2018! Ciao!**


	6. Kapitel-VI Dunkle Hallen

**Okay, I lied.**

 **I'm managing to get some work done on MiST instead of my potential novel. It's just, I wanna write about F/GO stuff, not a boring political thriller! I'm sorry that I'm human! I've invested myself in this too!**

 **Right, so! We're continuing right off from where we left off in the fifth chapter with the introduction of the Blue Hound of Ulster. Helmuth's group of civilians and Chaldea survivors are trying to make their way to a leyline intersection, and chances are that they'll probably run into a shadow servant this chapter. Hopefully. I don't really know what's going to happen myself per chapter, as I write these AN's before I actually get too far into the chapter itself. I just come back here to post the word count at the end.**

 **Anyways.**

 **Word count was 4,814, including the Omake at the end.**

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"What did you expect?" – Talking

'A war like no other?' – Thought

" _Der Teufel selbst_?" – Very bad Google Translate, or emphasis on speech

' _Or just a bad dream_?' – Written word

~ _Maybe it was nothing at all._ ~ – Radio Chatter

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"What in the Hell is a Servant Caster?"

That was the current thought running through Helmuth's head as he kept the _Eberkönig_ level with the man's chest. The quintet of Helmuth, Hertzog, Fujimaru, Kyrelight, and Animusphere – who was cowering behind Hertzog – were settled into a tense standoff with the aforementioned Caster, who merely stood a few feet away from them. With both his hands on the large staff he carried, he was apparently content to just smirk at the group. Behind the standoff, the remainder of the first responders of the civilian group finished up with the undead that had attacked.

The second thought that ran through Helmuth's mind, was how quickly could he get a shot off at the man, while also trying to get out of the way of any immediate retaliation. He slowly brought the _Eberkönig_ up to his shoulder, peering down the leaf sight at his adversary.

"Ah, I wouldn't try that if I were you buddy," came the jovial statement from the man, "I don't doubt you're quick on the draw there, but well… You're all standing on something pretty nasty I set up."

Behind him, Helmuth heard Animusphere hiss. "Runestones!"

"Got it in one Miss!" He laughed, twirling his staff slowly and pointing at Helmuth and Hertzog. "I've been sitting here for a couple minutes, keeping an eye on you two since you got here. Figured I'd get some defenses up, you know? Shame about your third guy too, although at least he got to go quick from what I saw. Archer's efficient like that."

Helmuth grimaced, baring his teeth. "And what is it that you want from us then?"

"Ah, not much really. Just a regular case of 'enemy of my enemy is my friend'."

"Pardon?"

"Well Archer was the bastard that offed your friend," the nonchalant reply came, "And he's been a thorn in my side since the Grail War began; both him and his King, Saber, were the ones who caused this whole fire mess that's going on around you all. They've been trying to off me for a long while now."

"And how are we to trust your word?" Hertzog's voice cut through.

"Simple." He responded, looking bored. "I haven't tried to kill you. If I wanted to, your merry band of men would've perished already, but I haven't done anything yet. Figured I could help you out."

"Again, how can we trust you then?" Animusphere asked heatedly, "You're a Servant. And from the chances, you've got no Master tying you down. For all we know, the second we turn our backs to you you'll set off these runestones!"

"Ah geez, whatever shall you do then?" Caster sardonically replied. "I guess the only thing you could do is have a Master I could pledge myself to for prana, and then you wouldn't have to worry about any back stabbings, huh? Oh wait, nevermind, you got one right there."

An awkward silence drew over the group as Caster stared intently at Fujimaru, who merely shuffled on the balls of his feet. In all the pandemonium of the scenario, Helmuth had completely forgotten the fact that the young man was one of these 'Masters', although this was the first time he heard of a pledge involving a Servant and a Master here.

"If, uh, if you'd want to," Fujimaru began with a stutter, "Caster-san, would you mind making a contract with us then?"

With a dramatic sigh, the man in blue threw his hands up. "Final- _fucking_ -ly! God, thought you'd keep me waiting. Sure kid, looks like we're joining forces. Gimme your hand. Right, ok. Blah blah blah, I put myself into your service, blah blah blah, ok. Servant Caster, now in your service Master, we're good to go."

"Just like that?" Fujimaru asked, scrunching his eyebrows together in confusion.

"Just like that, yeah." Caster answered, leaning against his staff. "What, you'd thought it'd be this big magical light show? Piss off."

Helmuth resisted the urge to slap his palm to his face in exasperation. This was the next level of tedious and stupidity if he ever heard it.

"Right, well then… If all of that is over and done with, can we continue on?" Helmuth asked with a sigh, "We still need to get to those leylines or whatever _Herr Doktor_ spoke of."

This peeked Caster's attention, and he turned his gaze to Helmuth.

"Leylines eh?" He asked, scratching his chin, "You would happen to mean the ones up by that mansion in the hills, do you? Ooh, I hope you aren't planning on going by the riverfront anytime soon then Master."

"A-and, uh, why's that Caster-san?"

"That's where Rider hangs out." Came the nonchalant reply. "And take it from me, you don't want to be dealing with her with this many people. She'll rip you apart in no time, if she's in a good mood."

"I shudder to think what'd happen if she were in a bad one then," Helmuth muttered, before continuing. "It shouldn't be an issue. We weren't planning on heading there at all, rather we'll be heading north towards it, away from the river itself."

Checking behind him, Helmuth nodded at Officer Mitsunari. In the time that the party had been speaking with Caster, the civilians had managed to quickly finish off the horde that had beset them, and the first responders were now holding a defensive cover around the families of the group. A quick glance of the rooftops showed that they were clear, like the street itself, and Helmuth began to get antsy. It felt like something was watching them, and he wanted to get a move on as soon as possible.

Helmuth then cast a glance at his watch on his left wrist told him they were bleeding precious sunlight – what little managed to pierce through the smog-like clouds hanging above. The group had about two hours of daylight left, and who knew what kind of horrors would be lurking in the dark after the sun fell. So, after a quick nod to Hertzog, he slung the _Eberkönig_ onto his back once more, and interjected into the argument that Animusphere and Caster were having about the validity of this other Servant.

"Hate to be interrupting, _Frau Direktorin_ ," he stated, withdrawing _Mitternachtskönigin_ from her holster under his left arm, "but we need to be going. Now. If we want to reach these leylines before nightfall, we've got to hurry. Caster, is it alright to ask if you join me on point? I feel like you've got a good feel for these streets, _ja_?"

Caster seemed impressed at the question. "Sure, don't see why not bud. Just don't expect me to charge into any enemies, since I don't have my spear I won't be at optimal power."

" _Danke_. Alright people!" Helmuth thanked the blue-clad Caster, before yelling to the civilians, "We're wasting daylight, so let's get a move on! Rendezvous is close, so we're almost to safety!"

"After you, von Trotha." Hertzog murmured with a smirk.

" _Aber naturlich_ , _soldat_ Hertzog, _aber naturlich_ …" Helmuth replied, as he felt a shiver run up his spine…

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The being watched the group from afar, shrouded in a thick miasma surrounding him.

So, the traitor had joined forces with this new group of enemies, hm? Well, it mattered not, a few more bodies to kill was nothing for him. He was going to win that damned Grail, he just had to work his way up from the smallest fry – although it didn't matter that this small fry kept constantly evading him. And once he managed to kill that damned Caster, then it was Rider, then Berserker, and then finally the Archer and Saber.

With a wicked grin under his mask, Assassin swiftly began the hunt for his prey.

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Thankfully, an hour's worth of travel was all the Fuyuki survivors needed to get to the leyline location. And, surprisingly enough, a mansion sat upon them. Three stories tall, with magnificent wood working – how that didn't catch fire was amazing – and large fences keeping the place sealed, it was both a fortress and quite a beautiful place to live. Who owned it, on the other hand…

"Ah, the Tohsaka residence?" Officer Mitsunari offered helpfully, "They were a rich family here."

"Were?" Helmuth asked.

"Well, the father lost his life in the wild fire that happened a decade or so ago, and the wife committed suicide. Their daughter was the only one residing her after that, but I don't think she does anymore…"

"Oof."

Indeed, as the group slowly filtered onto the mansion grounds, Helmuth got yet another chill up his spine. This place, which had been full of life at one point he was sure, was now empty and soulless. Nevertheless, the decision was final. This was to be their base of operations in the town of Fuyuki for the time being. First order of business was getting inside the place, after that?

Contact needed to be established – both with Chaldeas and with the Hive. Afterwards, the immediate transfer of the Fuyuki survivors to either of the home bases was the most pressing issue, although with Chaldeas currently trying to get itself fixed, it would be wiser send the civilians to GKI instead. Thirdly, the transfer of support forces to Chaldea would also be important if Helmuth and Hertzog were to continue operating in this universe. And finally, backup and/or a larger presence at Chaldea after this current operation.

Besides him, Animusphere was already starting to discuss defenses with Hertzog and Caster, as apparently the two – herself and Caster – were capable of placing runestones around the property for defense, while Hertzog's G4 was capable of keeping the dead afar from the third story. Still, a lack of ammo was going to be a problem in the long run if they were to keep this up. She'd run out of ammo before long, and then they'd be resorting to secondaries and close combat.

Sighing deeply, Helmuth kneaded his temples. He'd been running on heightened senses and alcohol to get him here, and both were taking their toll on him. A pounding headache was slowly building, and he felt like if he were to continue like this for any longer, he'd collapse. So, it was a weary face that he made his way up to the mansion's front door, Mitsunari, Fujimaru, and Kyrelight following.

"So, this is it, huh?" Fujimaru asked quietly, staying close to Kyrelight as the young woman rest her shield against herself.

"Looks like it," Helmuth muttered, "Leylines are supposed to be here, supposedly."

Kyrelight nodded, tucking some of her hair behind an ear. " _Hai_ , I can feel the leylines underneath this place. It's, they're quite powerful actually."

"Now only if we could get in…" Helmuth replied, jiggling the doorknob.

"Oh, I could get that Trotha-san."

" _Nein_ , _danke_ , I can get it. Uh, Fujimaru, would you mind getting my pistol from the _Direktor_ , please? I'll need it back."

With a glance, Fujimaru nodded and left, Kyrelight following close behind him.

Young love, Helmuth thought with a grimace. A startling shudder ran through him, and his knees nearly buckled. Steadying himself against the doors, Helmuth became hyper aware of what was happening to him as he began to hyperventilate.

Post-Battle Stress Attack, or a PBSA, was the common name for the affliction in the Yytuskian Armed Forces – the _Yytuskische Streitkräfte_. Another, more common name for it in medical circles was a panic attack. An attack on the body's nervous system after a high and then sudden drop of adrenaline, most _soldaten_ of the YSk saw this after their first experience with combat, hence the name. Most citizens in the Federation would usually experience the psychological affliction in their year of compulsory military service ( _Wehrpflicht_ ), as live-fire training and sometimes mock combat with blanks was common.

For Helmuth, however, he had experienced no such thing before. His _Wehrpflicht_ time was spent as an airforce radar operator. He had never been involved in extended ground combat like he had today before, and now with the loss of both his self-inflicted intoxication and the adrenaline running through his system, it was hitting him twice over. The shaking in his hands and his body intensified as he struggled to getting his breathing to a slow enough rhythm to calm himself down, before he steadied himself against the bannister of the stairs. A deep gurgling echoed loudly from him, and his already pale face paled further.

And with it, rose both his prior drinking of the day and his early breakfast.

With a lurch and a burp, Helmuth threw up violently, thankfully having the foresight to hold his gasmask away from the bile as it erupted from him.

A second wave of nausea hit him a few seconds after he finished the first bout, and he once more leant over.

A hand pressed against his back, grabbing his mask from him and rubbing soothing circles on the nape of his neck as vomit was expelled from him.

" _Es geht dir gut_ , _es geht dir gut_ ," Hertzog murmured as Helmuth finished coughing, "Happens to the best of us."

With another sputter, Helmuth spat, before turning to his ally. " _D_ - _danke_ , Hertzog…"

"Think nothing of it, happened to me too, 'cept I didn't have another there to keep the hair out of my face. Then again, that's what you get for drinking on a mission." She said, adding the last bit with a fox-like smirk.

"Thanks, but I'd prefer it were the concussion I most definitely have…"

"Are you alright over here, Trotha-san?" Fujimaru asked as he returned, gingerly holding the P12 that Helmuth had lent Animusphere.

"Fine now, might need to sit down and rest for a bit," he replied honestly, wiping some spittle from his lips. "You mind blowing the lock on the door, Fujimaru? I'd do it, but my hands are shaky-like."

Before the response could come, three rapid-fire shots rang out, along with the sound of splintering wood, drawing everyone's attention.

Nonchalantly, Hertzog holstered her now-smoking P12, grinning. "House is open. Let's make ourselves at home."

With a matching grin, Caster called out by Animusphere. "Nice. I'm beginning to feel like this might be a fun time with you lot."

"Well, not a lot can go wrong from here, right? I mean, mission objective completed!" Hertzog responded, smiling. "We can finally contact home and get things fixed! We can finally get some rest and back up, and maybe even head home if they call the mission scrubbed!"

=+=+=+=+=Page Break=+=+=+=+=

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN WE CAN'T GO HOME YET?!"

This was yelled from the basement of the Tohsaka residence, forcing Helmuth to wince and hold his now completely bandaged-head. Across from him sat Caster, who was also holding his head in agony as the two rested in a master bedroom.

The yelling had started barely twenty minutes after Animusphere, Fujimaru, Kyrelight, and Hertzog had managed to find what the Magi called a "workshop" in the basement. Helmuth had no clue what that meant, but apparently the room allowed Hertzog's radio pack to crackle to life, allowing her contact with the Hive. It also allowed the Chaldeans to officially set up their communicators to constantly stay in contact with their own home base as well.

And that's where the first bit off issue began.

Helmuth had noticed this earlier on, but Hertzog had been slowly becoming angrier and angrier with their current position in this universe. Not anger at him, thankfully, but rather at the Hive and GKI for giving them faulty equipment to use. Add onto the fact that now they were roped into trying to save this universe, as well as twenty-something civilians, well…

Another string of curses emanated from the next floor down.

Hertzog was scary when she was angry.

From what he could gather – in between the expletives and yelling – was that after the Hive lost all contact with Muhlkampf, they tried contacting them for a full half-hour before giving up. So naturally, when Hertzog called in, she had managed to get the only person left in the operations room: an _Echtmönche_ -Yytusche by the name of Ahavniel ben Sherry, who had been there only in the event of an emergency.

And an emergency it was, as Sherry – Tekkie, Hertzog had passionately called him – had managed to rouse Dr. Schiessman from her chambers with a skeleton support staff to figure out just what the hell was going on. And from what the arguing match going on was like, it was probably a shitshow. The argument that was going on now was probably about the civilians, and where they were to go – Chaldea, or GKI?

A moment of calm had Helmuth glancing over at Caster – the man had supplied his name as Cu Chulainn when they had settled into the mansion – who only blinked in confusion as well.

A sudden pounding at the door to the room the two were in had Helmuth jumping to his feet, just as Hertzog smashed her way into the room.

"You." She growled, pointing angrily at Helmuth, "Downstairs. _Jetzt_."

With a meep, and clutching his pounding head, Helmuth obliged, following the angry woman as Cu offered a sincere – read, not – to him.

Following his angered co-worker into the workshop downstairs, Helmuth would've been intrigued if he hadn't been scared shitless.

The basement had been separated into two halves: a rec room complete with a billiards table, and the workshop, whose entrance was hidden behind a bookcase.

The rec room would've been a nice place to relax it hadn't been commandeered by the Chaldeans, who were pouring over every text from the study two floors above. Lush, well-kept hardwood flooring, with wooden panelled walls, the aforementioned billiards table, a small bar, and a few couches gave the room a sophisticated "man-cave" feel. The various family photos lining those walls added into the feel, with the family in all those photos painting a happy family. Hell, there was even a minifridge.

The workshop, on the other hand, was almost the complete opposite.

It was if the room had never been completed, with a cold stone flooring, the walls – with the exception of the one connecting it to the rec room – being cobblestone, with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Workbenches and tables covered in various things that Helmuth had no clue were, a bookshelf off in the far corner, a chair, a locked chest, and coat rack also stood in the room, with Hertzog's radio pack on one of said tables, but they weren't the things that dominated your view. That went to the large pentagram-like sigil etched into the floor in the middle of the room.

It had candles.

Okay, it had more than just candles, but that was all Helmuth's eyes could focus on as Hertzog basically dragged him to the communications pack. He figured that once this was all over, he could thoroughly inspect the room if he wanted to.

"Jack your mask in," Hertzog announced as they got to the table, "Dr. Schiessman wants to talk with us."

Pulling his gasmask over his head with a shrug, Helmuth plugged the cord that usually connected to the personal radio he had into the radio pack, and nodded at Hertzog as he heard the feedback play.

"We're both her now, Doctor."

~ _Gutt, gutt. It's good to hear from the both of you._ ~ Dr. Schiessman's voice echoed through Helmuth's ears, sounding tiny and far away. ~ _Now, I've heard your report Wachoffizier Hertzog, now let us hear it from you Unterwachoffizier von Trotha._ ~

"Well, Dr. Schiessman," Helmuth began with a cough, before continuing with the events both he and Hertzog had experienced.

Everything from the shambling dead, the burning town and possibly destroyed planet, the Chaldeans, the group of survivors, they're run-in with Caster and subsequent alliance, and now the leyline-infused base of operations they were hunkered down in. Other than that, things had been pretty hectic otherwise…

"… And that's all, I suppose…"

There was a pause on the other end of the frequency, as the crew back home tried to make sense of just what the hell that Helmuth and Hertzog had stumbled into.

A half minute later, Dr. Schiessman's voice rang through again.

~ _Well, that's… Definitely something. ~_ She murmured, ~ _Be as it may, I'm relieved that both of you are in good enough health. Orders would usually be to continue helping out the survivors, however we've managed to get a good enough signal to send something through for you or vice versa. After that, we'll be able to secure the civilians you have, and then when this 'singularity' is fixed, send them to Chaldea._ ~

"There's still the matter of weaponry Doctor," Hertzog pointed out. "So far our weapons have been doing good enough, but I get the feeling that if we are to engage one of these servants, we'll get a thorough ass-whooping."

~ _I can understand. When we send through the beacon, we'll also send through something another team managed to pickup. You might find it useful, and it runs off the same energies that we use here at GKI._ ~

Hertzog shared a look with Helmuth, and the both shrugged. Whatever it was, it had to be good to be sent through.

"And this, beacon?"

~ _It's a one-way teleportation pole, basically. You'll have to get the civilians to all bunch up and hold onto each other, and then get one to hold the pole. We'll be able to pull you – again – when the singularity ends._ ~

There was a pause, before Dr. Schiessman continued.

~ _Also, it occurred to Technician ben Sherry here that we'd have no way to return to this Chaldea, so we'll supply you with a locator for them to set up. Sounds good?_ ~

"Yes ma'am," Hertzog replied, "Is that all?"

~ _It is for now. Hopefully we'll be able to keep in contact now that you've tuned the radio, but if we don't… Godspeed then._ ~

"Thank you, Doctor."

Another pause, and the radio went dead.

Helmuth turned his gaze to Hertzog, who only grimaced.

"They weren't going to tell me anything until I got you as well," she supplied, giving her reason for dragging him down stairs, "and I figure now we're gonna get some good equipment now anyways, so let's get those civvies squared away."

" _Ja_ , I suppose."

=+=+=+=+=Page Break=+=+=+=+=

Surprisingly enough, the teleportation pole that had been sent through was just that: a pole. Sure, it looked futuristic, with a mostly polymer design, but Helmuth was unimpressed. It had appeared in a flash of light, as well as the 'special gift' GKI had sent them, in the living room upstairs, and Helmuth wasted no time gathering up the Fuyuki survivors together to use it.

Quickly gathered, the group of twenty-one people all held together with the pole, and Mitsunari gave one last thanks to Helmuth and company. He then pressed the big red button on the pole, and the entire group disappeared in flash similar to how it arrived. That was one less problem that the group now had to deal with.

Now though, it was just a small group of six, Helmuth and Hertzog, the trio from Chaldea, and Cu Chulainn. And Animusphere was not happy at their small numbers. So, it was decided that Ritsuka Fujimaru was going to use that summoning circle downstairs to summon another servant. It was also decided to take a look at the 'special gift' from GKI afterwards.

"So how exactly does this work?" Helmuth asked inquisitively as they gathered.

"It's rather simple," Romani began as Kyrelight lay her shield overtop of the summoning circle, "Mash's shield will act as a conduit for the FATE system back in Chaldea, which will charge the summoning system underneath. And then, those energies will reach into the Throne of Heroes and summon a servant that'll help in our quest to save humanity!"

Animusphere fumed, stamping her foot. "Who the hell allowed you to talk Romani?!"

"S-Sorry Director," the man stuttered, "I just figured we'd save time and give them a quick explanation rather than a long-winded one!"

"Well, I get it at least," Helmuth answered before Animusphere could continue arguing, " _danke_ , Dr. Romani. I'd prefer a quick explanation over a long one to be sure."

"Director, Master," Kyrelight announced, "everything is set."

Fujimaru faltered, looking at Animusphere expectantly. "What, uh, what exactly am I supposed to do for this?"

"Ugh, just activate your circuits and order a servant to be summoned!" Animusphere yelled, before muttering, "God, why couldn't someone more competent survived…?"

"Right… Uh… Here I go then…" Fujimaru began, before coughing, "Uh, to, uh, any servants within the Throne of Heroes, heed my call. I call upon you to come forth, lend your abilities to us to fight this war, and bring forth the safe keeping of humanity!"

With each word that left his mouth, Helmuth was amazed to see the summoning circle charge with an ethereal light. It continued growing, eventually getting to the point of blinding the occupants of the room, before it suddenly disappeared. And where the circle was stood yet another servant.

The first thing Helmuth distinctly noticed was a sweet, pungent smell in the air. The smell of well fermented wine, or grape schnapps that had been left out in the warm for too long. The smell alone was almost intoxicating, but not enough so to that point.

The next thing was the servant themselves. At 4'6", and clad in a purple robe with what appeared to be deep red tentacle flowing upwards from the hem and sleeves, the servant was an odd looking one. Odd because of the fact that she had a pair of horns on her forehead, parting her bangs, and what appeared to be some sort of dark material barely covering her indecent bits and contrasting greatly with her pale white skin. Strapped onto her back was a large, flask-like object, filled with an unknown liquid tinted blue by the flask's blued glass. Her hair, a simple bobcut-style, was a deep purple – and what was with this universe and having weirdly coloured hair? – which faded towards the tips. And finally, her eyes – filled with mirth – were a pale fuchsia.

A sultry smile played at her lips.

"Ara, what a welcome party…~" She murmured, turning her gaze onto Fujimaru "and all for little old me, hm, Master?~ Shuten Douji, Oni-King and Servant Assassin, I feel like we'll have grand time partying.~"

Off in the corner, mostly to himself as the newly dubbed Assassin draped herself over Fujimaru – much to the chagrin of Kyrelight – Helmuth muttered almost silently.

" _Was ist mit diesem kleinen_ , _frechen_ , _betrunkenen Kind_...?"

=+=+=+=+=Page Break=+=+=+=+=

 **OMAKE: A Drinking Contest Between Men; That Night**

"My father always told me: never trust a man who can't hold his liquor. So, I decided the best way to get to know you, Caster, was by celebrating with a drink."

"Not that I'm complaining," the servant in blue said, "but what exactly are we celebrating?"

"The fact that we got a nice roof over our heads, and booze to drink _mein Kamerad_." Came Helmuth's deadpanned response.

Rummaging around in his rucksack, the twenty-one-year-old gave a laugh of happiness as he procured two bottles of alcohol, setting them on the table the two were sitting at. Quickly retrieving a pair of pilfered shot glasses as well, he set those about the table as well, before seating himself across from the blue-clad servant.

"So, it's going to go like this," he explained, "We're going to try and get ourselves shitfaced, and in doing so, get to know each other better. Get it?"

"I think I've got it," Came the reply, "but question. Is this going to be a drinking contest, or just between allies?"

"Hopefully both."

A feral grin raced across Caster's face. "Alright then, hit me then."

=+=+=Two Hours Later=+=+=

It was quite a sight when Hertzog found the two, two hours later.

Cu Chulainn was nursing an entire bottle to himself, muttering drunkenly about something, while Helmuth was completely passed out across from him. Hertzog managed to count forty-three bottles – forth-four if you counted the one in Chulainn's hands – between the two of them, and facepalmed.

Inhaling quickly, she yelled.

" _IST ES DAS_ , _WAS IHR SCHEIßKERLE DIE GANZE ZEIT GEMACHT HABT_?! _WIR SUCHEN SEIT ZWEI STUNDEN NACH EUCH BEIDEN ARSCHLECKERN_!"

*Translated: Is that what you bastards have been doing this whole time?! We've been looking for you two ass lickers for two hours!

=+=+=+=+=Page Break=+=+=+=+=

 **Well, there we go. One step closer to the end of Singularity F, the civvies taken care of back at GKI, a new servant to ally for the Chaldeans to ally themselves with, and Helmuth's soon to be return to his own universe for some well needed rest!**

 **I worked on this for the better part of a week during NaNoWriMo, and I know I said that I was going to be working on something else, but God Sakes, trying to write that was like having constipation so I just returned to this. I'll hopefully be keeping on with my Monday publish schedule, although this is getting published for you Yanks and your weird Having-Thanksgiving-in-November-Instead-of-October-Like-Everyone-Else asses. Then again, you're the only ones who use the that weird metric system of yours.**

 **Still, expect chapter seven to be out sometime on the first Monday of December.**

 **Anyways, hope you enjoyed. Please remember to review, like, follow, et cetera, but most importantly review! Author's love seeing those, and I do as well. It shows me that people are actually reading my work, and are trying to give me support or feedback!**

 **Happy Thanksgiving Yanks!**


	7. Kapitel-VII Der geschwärzte König

**Onwards, to Chapter Seven!**

 **So, where to begin? Well, I guess I should start off on what you should expect from this chapter. Simply, this chapter is hopefully going to be the end of the Fuyuki Singularity, allowing the next one to continue with simple world building back in Helmuth's home dimension before our heroes head off to assist Chaldea. So, we're going to have to get through a lot of things really fast in this chapter; specifically, the fights with the Shadowed Rider, Assassin, Lancer, and then Archer and Saber.**

 **For the future, I'm hoping that the France Singularity will bolster some things that are different about this universe's Chaldea, as well as offer the potential for new allies to arrive. But, that's the future.**

 **For now, y'all better strap in, because woah boy, Shuten is a drunken powerhouse, as well as Caster Chulainn backing her and Mash up.**

 **I hope I can capture their personalities well…**

 **Anyways, word count was a staggering 8,787 words, not including this and the ending ANs. Have fun slogging through that, because I did not while writing!**

=+=+=+=+=Page Break=+=+=+=+=

"What did you expect?" – Talking

'A war like no other?' – Thought

" _Der Teufel selbst_?" – Very bad Google Translate, or emphasis on speech

' _Or just a bad dream_?' – Written word

~ _Maybe it was nothing at all._ ~ – Radio Chatter

=+=+=+=+=Page Break=+=+=+=+=

The new servant, Shuten Douji, Helmuth mused, was certainly interesting. She exuded feminine charms, that sickly sweet smell of alcohol, and an air of danger, that while not overtly worrying – she was on their side, thanks to Fujimaru – could possible raise some issues down the line.

For one thing, she was a horrible flirt. Upon her summoning, she had draped herself in the arms of poor Ritsuka Fujimaru, who burned a bright blush and sputtered incoherently at the act, until she withdrew herself from him. Her reason for doing so was simple: she was a creature of the moment, always behaving to her hearts content. The way and reasons she flirted was simply because she felt like doing so. Helmuth was, quite frankly, happy that she didn't chose to try and flirty with him, rather opting to inquiry with Fujimaru and Animusphere about the current ongoings.

The second thing that Helmuth had noticed about her was that she the damned best functioning alcoholic he had ever seen. Even upon her summoning, he could tell she was sloshed just enough to be perfectly fine, but acted like she was anything but. Damn near everything about her character screamed inebriation; the flask she carried on her back was filled to the brim with rice wine – rice wine potent enough to kill a human with its alcohol content alone, one might add. Hell, after undraping herself from Fujimaru, she managed to bring forth, or summon, a dish that she filled with her rice wine and began to imbibe from.

The scent alone was apparently enough to make Animusphere slightly dizzy before Shuten masked it with some sort of spell.

Yeah, it was safe to say that the Assassin was something else entirely.

Nevertheless, now the group had some down time. Time for rest and shoring up temporary defenses for the night before moving they planned to move out the next morning. With their recent summoning of Shuten, their connection to both Chaldea and GKI secured, and the weapon cache that GKI had sent for its two remaining operatives in the realm, it seemed that things were going to shape up for a bit. The weapon cache was quite a welcome surprise for everyone, coming equipped with military-grade MREs, medical supplies, clean clothes for both Helmuth and Hertzog, and an assortment of heavy weaponry.

Everyone – from Cu Chulainn to Mash – had managed to get something out of the supply, whether that be simply food, getting patched up by Hertzog, or in Cu's case: picking out a Yytusche _Einheitsmütze_ to wear for fun. And then the two Yytuskians took a look at the weapon catalog supplied for them.

" _Mein Gott im Himmel_ …" Helmuth muttered, looking over the assorted grouping of firearms. "That's a lot of weird looking things there..."

"I'd have to agree there," came Hertzog's reply, mouth slightly agape.

The weapons in question – other than a G4 rifle and a MG5 – were an oddball bunch of things. Weapons that looked like they belonged in a pulp magazine, or in sci-fi movies sat before them, almost beckoning them to reach out and try them.

"W-what even is this thing?" Helmuth asked, picking up what appeared to be a rifle, only with a claw made of copper wiring at the end.

~ _Ah, I believe I can answer that!_ ~ Came a pronounced, but nasally voice through Helmuth's gasmask earphones.

Ahavniel ben Sherry, or Tekkie as Hertzog had started taking to call him, had been appointed their handler after re-establishing contact with GKI, and now served as their support if need be.

~ _That was a weapon we managed to retrieve from D-002,_ ~ he began, ~ _Our team managed to retrieve that weapon, as well as a cache of other weapons and tech that we managed to examine and reproduce. Your radio systems come from that tech, as well as some other nifty things you can check out when you get back. That weapon that you're holding, however, was classified as Experimentelles Modell 3A, Gewehr, Elementarwaffen. Its shorter nickname is just the Roehrgewehr._ ~

Helmuth's eyebrows shot up as he inspected the rifle. "A lightning gun?"

~ _In the technical sense, ja._ ~

"And this?" Hertzog asked, picking up a smaller weapon shaped like a revolver. It was large though, and had a pulsing blue battery where the cylinder would be, while the barrel was about twice the size of a regular barrel with a threaded barrel jacket. It honestly looked like a caricature of some space-age pistol.

~ _Ah, another weapon from D-002, except that one is from a subdimension numbered D-002-3. It was incomplete when we found it, and it took a bit of tinkering to get the whole thing running. It's called the Experimentelles Waffenmodell 15A, Pistole, Elementarwaffe, or as I like to call it: Winterheulen. The documents we found with it stated that it ran on an energy similar to the Roehrgewehr, but fundamentally different. Makes sense considering that we got the Roehrgewehr from 002-61, and that one from 002-3._ ~ Ben Sherry explained, spilling off into a tangent.

"Different how?" Hertzog questioned, looking over the device.

~ _Well, for starters – it's a break-open style by the way –_ ~ Ben Sherry began, pausing to help explain the device's action for Hertzog before continuing, ~ _The energy that it runs on was classified as a specific element in that dimension's periodic table, while the Roehrgewehr ran on the same sort of energy that powers, say, this radio set. There were some tests conducted trying to use one energy on a different weapon, but that was a bust, so we've had to synthesize the element for that weapon. That's one of the reasons that it hasn't really be put into mass production._ ~

Hertzog huffed, grabbing the holster for the weapon and handing it over to Helmuth. "Interesting to know Tekkie," she stated with a scoff, pilfering through the rest of the weaponry, "Anything in here I'd like? You know, like a regular firearm?"

As the two devolved into their own conversation, Helmuth studied the weapon that had been handed to him. Truly, the glance he had spared it earlier hadn't done it justice as it now sat in his hands. It was bulky, weighed about twice as the Midnight Queen nestled safely under his left arm, and he got the feeling that it should have been designed more as a rifle than a pistol. Nonetheless, he liked the feel of it. The pistol grip was snug for anyone to handle properly, and the wrist brace that acted as a grip guard helped support his aim as he brought it into a fighting stance.

Testing with only one hand – his dominant hand being the one he used to fire – the weight of the device was adequate, only a slight amount of weapon sway as he stared down the rudimentary iron sights atop the thing. Bringing his other hand up to steady his hand, and thus the sway, he grinned as it evened out nicely. A perfect two-handed pistol in his mind. A quick test of resting his left hand forward of the trigger guard – making it seem he was holding a small rifle – produced the same result, although he wasn't entirely sold on the safety of that method.

Satisfied with the ergonomics of the _Winterheulen_ – or P15A, he decided as it was much easier – he turned his attention to the back of the weapon itself, where several tabs were, along with a vent on the top right side. Oddly enough, there was no safety on it, rather a ON/OFF tab, as well as a dial that went from _eins_ to _sechs_ – one to six – which he could only equate to the amount of shots the battery had, possibly? He'd have to check in either trials or combat itself.

It was an interesting weapon to be sure, and another sidearm to keep him safe in the coming battles ahead. Who knows what effects it could have on one of those corpses, or something worse?

Nodding approvingly, he attached the P15A's holster to the right side of his kit belt, and holstered it.

"Damn fine handling," he murmured to himself.

A quick glance around the room showed that Hertzog was still going through the weaponry in the supply crate, inspecting a G4 rifle with an under barrel _granatwerfer_. Off in the doorway was, surprisingly, Chulainn.

" _Ach_ , hey there Chulainn."

"Ah, just call me Cu man," the Caster replied with a wave, "No need for formalities."

"My apologies," Helmuth responded sheepishly, "What brings you here?"

"Mm, not much honestly. Truth be told I'm getting a bit antsy," he explained, stepping into the room, "With the whole place warded like this, anything within a kilometer radius is gonna get picked up and alert me and that girl with the tsundere problem downstairs, but until that happens there's not a whole lot I can do."

"T-tsundere…?" Helmuth asked, cocking his head a bit, "I have no – actually, nevermind. Don't wanna know what that is. Anyways, if you'd like you can stay a bit. We've still got to get some things set up here after all, and I could use someone to shoot the shit with."

The Caster raised an eyebrow.

Helmuth paused. " _Was_?"

"Nothing, just, you do know who I am right?" Came the deadpan reply.

" _Ja_ , _ja_ , a Servant, some type of mythical hero or whatever," Helmuth responded, waving away any concerns. "Supposed to be super powerful, able to kill humans easily, blah blah. I could care less, honestly. This world makes no _gottverdammt_ sense. People capable of magic, being able to summon things from space and time like no shit? I'm just here to do a job, and try and stay alive."

"Alright then, you're pretty damn easygoing for a human. Say, got anything to drink?"

Helmuth rummaged around in his pack, tossing the blue-haired caster a bottle of scotch. "Go nuts man, more where that came from later on."

Chulainn offered a thanks as Helmuth turned back to the 'luxury items' that had come with everything else.

Searching dutifully, he gave a small chuckle of surprise when he saw it. Underneath a set of clothes was a small, ornate box, with an iron cross on the lid. Gently lifting the box out of the container, he smiled as he heard Chulainn whistle off to the side.

"Now what's that?"

"Something special to me," Helmuth whispered, holding it close.

The box was about the size of a book, with golden oakleaves that surrounded the cross inlaid into the oak wood. Sterling silver legs shaped like eagles' claws that extended from the bottom corners to the lip of the lid, with the painted flag of Yytuskia on the left-hand side of the lock, and the Imperial flag of the Von Trotha family on the right.

Chulainn, now leaning over Helmuth to get a better look at the box, grinned. "That is a damn good work of art you got there."

"More than just art," Helmuth replied, unzipping the top part of his bodysuit to pull a necklace out from underneath, "An heirloom, and a safekeep."

Fishing the necklace – and the key attached to it – off his neck, he calmly unlocked and opened the box, revealing the contents inside.

The contents were, surprisingly enough, another smaller box that was rather plain compared to the one it was housed in, a medal, and a smoking pipe.

Giving another small smile, Helmuth immediately went about setting the box down on one of the nightstands in the room, and taking both the pipe and the other box out. Closing the more ornate box and stashing it away back where he got it from the supply cache, Helmuth went about filling his pipe from the other box.

"That's the heirloom, a pipe?" Chulainn asked, almost incredulously, "Jeez, there was all that buildup for almost nothing."

Helmtuh snorted, before replying. "The box, the medal, the photos underneath the medal, and this pipe are the heirlooms Cu. They were my great-grandfathers, Ägid Helmuth von Trotha, the man I get my name from."

"Oh yeah? Why's he so special?"

"He served in the Great War," Helmuth solemnly replied, placing the pipe between his teeth, "He served not only in the Great War, but in the two wars before it: the Kuhlfrosian War, and the Annexation War. But it was the Great War where he got that medal; became something of a hero for our family, a sense of pride."

"Great-granddad was always a stout monarchist, and didn't necessarily like the fascists being in charge back in the forties. However, he had a dedication to the idea of Yytuskia rather than its government, and so he fought in the Great War against Helvana. That medal is the _Erstklassiges Eisernes Kreuz, mit Blattgold und einem silbernen Herzen_ , or the Iron Cross First Class, with golden leaves and a silver heart – to show he was wounded in action. He was one of ten people in the entirety of the war that earned that medal, and he was given it for his valour in the Siege of Essen-Rostov."

Looking Cu dead in the eyes, Helmuth plucked his great-grandfathers pipe from his mouth, and held it in firmly in his grip.

"During that entire battle, that five-year siege, he had this pipe." Helmuth stated, "Not once did he drop it, or lose it. Even when he was wounded and kept fighting, he still had it either in his mouth or his pocket. That's why its so important to my family. It shows our sheer tenacity when it comes to something we love. I'm just lucky that it got passed down to me."

"Well damn," Chulainn whistled, "Sounds like your great-granddad was the type of guy I'd have love to fight with. Ballsy fucker, wasn't he?"

"Actually," Helmuth began with a laugh, "from what grandpa said about him, great-grandfather was the 'stick-up-his-ass' sort of guy, you know? Stoic, quiet, bit of a hard ass?"

"Ah, that's one of the best types of warrior!" Chulainn replied, laughing as well. "The other is the complete opposite!"

"Anyways, I'm gonna have a smoke. You're welcome to join me." Helmuth said, heading for the door.

Cu waved him off, "I'll stick to your booze, thank you. Stay safe out there."

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Fully stepping outside, Helmuth smiled wistfully as he placed his pipe between his teeth. The night was calm, almost eerily so, with only the distant crackling and pops of burning buildings in the town below. The blood-red skyline – coloured by fire and smoke – was majestic enough that, if you didn't the tragedy that had befallen this world, you would call picturesque. The sun had set about an hour before, when everyone had been witnessing the summoning of Shuten Douji, and Helmuth lamented the fact that he couldn't see how many moons this world had.

Oh well, he could ask Fujimaru later on, he supposed.

For now, though, he had a pipe full of tobacco and a little special 'something-something' to help with his nerves later on. He struck a match, going to light the tabaco when someone behind him spoke up.

"Oho? What's this?"

He froze, lit match hovering just above his pipe. The voice was behind him, about ten feet or so, and was distinctly feminine. It was no one he knew, not one of the Chaldeans or their Servants, nor was it Hertzog. That could only mean it was someone from this realm. And that was something close enough to terrifying.

He hissed through his teeth, dropping the match. The match, of course, having slowly burnt down to the end as he was frozen in fear.

"Oh, your match burnt out," the voice murmured, now almost close enough to his ear that he could feel the woman's hot breath, "Here, let me get that for you, human."

A small flash of light – close to being like that of a flint lighter igniting – went off in the right side of his peripherals. A second later, an index finger wreathed in fire crept into his view, before dipping into the opening of his pipe. The scent of burning tobacco filled his nose, and he sucked back, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

The finger crept back out of his view.

" _V_ - _vielen danke_ …" he stuttered, speaking around the pipe.

A purr-like laugh was whispered into his ear. "Think nothing of it human. After all, isn't a nice gesture to allow a deadman one last smoke?"

"Problem is, I'm not exactly dead yet, am I?" Helmuth asked in return, untensing himself in preparation for a quick movement.

A flash of movement to his left, in the tree line, gave him pause, however, and he wondered if the being behind him had seen it too.

"Mm… That can be arranged quite quickly," the being replied, giving no indication that they had.

He felt something press against the back of his neck – a blade, or some sort of sharp weapon? – but his attention was now firmly on the treeline. A flash of metal there, was that a knife?

"Helmuth! Down!"

He moved, pushing himself backwards into the being behind him, catching them by surprise and managing to get them onto the grass below them.

Just in time too, as a pair of steel daggers whistled overhead just about level with where his head had been a second before.

Rolling off the person who he had pushed down, he withdrew _Mitternachtskönigin_ from her holster and fired into the treeline. Tracer fire from Hertzog's G4 on the third floor followed suite, lighting up the night.

Reloading, Helmuth quickly cast a glance downward.

The being – a woman – was staring up at him, almost like she wasn't sure what to make of him. She wasn't a normal human, that was for sure, as her pink hair would suggest. Nor were her eyes, bright yellow with slits like a snake. And nor was the somewhat pronounced smoke-like miasma wafting off her prone form. An odd symbol, or was it a letter, was tattooed onto her forehead, just above her brows. Her clothing was odd too, bits and pieces of armor overtop of clothing.

Finishing reloading his revolver, Helmuth gave a casting glance towards the treeline, before back to her. Making his mind up, he thrust his left hand out.

"Come on," he stated, "We need to get to some cover."

"You would trust someone like that, so easily?" She asked with a hiss, challenging him.

"Were you expecting me to stab you? I'd rather trust the lady who lit my pipe than the person who tried to decapitate me with knives."

She hesitated, as if trying to make up her mind, when an explosion rocked the treeline. There was Caster, launching fireballs with his stave from the porch, while Fujimaru was beckoning to him.

"Now or never Miss," Helmuth asked.

She grabbed his hand. "Fine."

"Good to know," he replied, lifting her to her feet. "Now let's go before we both become pincushions, _ja_?"

The two raced across the yard, before jumping up the stairs where Fujimaru was waiting with Caster and Kyrelight. Chulainn cast yet another bolt of fire, before the group closed the front doors, and caught their breath in the foyer. That lasted all of five seconds before Caster caught sight of the woman.

Backing up with a curse, he leveled his staff at her, charging a bolt of fire.

"What the fuck man?!" He cursed, glaring at Helmuth as Kyrelight pushed Fujimaru behind her and her massive shield.

"What?" Helmuth challenged back, looking from Chulainn to Kyrelight.

"That's a fucking enemy servant, you dipshit!" He yelled, forcing Helmuth's eyes to widen in alarm.

Before he could turn his attention to the now-somewhat-identified servant, she was already behind him, wrapping her arms around him in a manner that would suggest lust or a close hug between friends, but the tightness of the hug told poor Helmuth otherwise.

The yellow-eyed servant laughed quietly, "My, my, how eager you are Caster! Are you so eager that you'd murder one of your allies?"

Helmuth struggled in her grasp, groaning as she squeezed tighter.

"And such a gullible human you are," she whispered to Helmuth, firmly keeping him between Chulainn and herself, "Do you really think I was in any danger? And now, you are the one in danger of death, so fitting for a creature of your pitiful race."

"I appreciate the compliments," Helmuth ground out, keeping his eye on Caster, "but it was more of a gentlemanly thing to do, rather than just ducking out of harms way by myself. My mother hammered it home that it is wise to be a gentleman, even when dealing with unsavory peoples."

The servant gave out a mocking gasp, removing one of her arms from Helmuth to cover her mouth. "Surely you don't mean me, do you little human?"

"Your words, not mine miss."

Before retaliation could strike him, however, several things happened in extremely quick succession.

The door to the right of them – the front door – exploded inward as the mystery servant that had begun the assault on the mansion earlier was thrown inside by Shuten. The servant, clad in black but with a bone white skull mask, and wrappings along their right arm, flew past the two warring groups inside the foyer, smashing into the kitchen farther down the hall on the left.

In the moments before the resulting distraction, Helmuth, who had managed to get his right arm free, had flipped the on button of the P15A holstered on his right thigh, and had been waiting to withdrawi it from its holster. His arm had been hanging beside him when the female servant had first captured him, while his left had been preoccupied trying to keep the servant's arm from choking him too badly. When the servant from outside came crashing in, the distraction had allowed him to withdraw the weapon, and fire it downwards at the feet of the servant.

A cold wind ripped through the foyer, emitting from the barrel of the prototype weapon as it froze the servant's feet firmly to the floor, discolouring her legs as it instantly caused frostbite to set in.

A scream from her echoed, and her grip lessened just enough for Helmuth to slip free, just as Caster fired the bolt of fire he had been holding.

It almost slammed into her, had she not twisted away at the last second. A blood-chilling sound rang – the sound of shattering glass, or ice in this case – and the servant howled in agony as her legs basically disintegrated at the ankle as she twisted away, collapsing in agony on the floor next to Helmuth.

And in the split second that he had as they locked eyes, Helmuth swore he saw sadness, anger, pain, and surprisingly acceptance flash through those yellow eyes, before _Mitternachtskönigin_ barked in Helmuth's left hand. A quick splatter of blood, and those eyes lost all emotion to them, glazing over before her entire being faded away in a shower of golden dust.

All of this happened in the span of ten seconds.

Ten seconds.

And then Shuten Douji finally stepped inside.

"Ara, what's going on here? Why're you on the floor cutie?"

"Kid managed to bag Rider," Cu supplied, before turning his attention towards the kitchen, "Now we need to take care of that pesky Assassin. Alright Master?"

A knife – this one an actual carving knife – whipped past Caster's head as Assassin stepped into view at the end of the hall.

"FiNaLlY," the servant called out, raising his right arm, "yOuR dEaThS wIlL bE fUfIlLeD, aS pEr HeR oRdErS! aS sHe CoMmAnDs!"

Cuhlainn, Kyrelight, and Shuten all readied themselves, before Assassin made to move.

The Midnight Queen responded, surprising everyone as the powerful .454 literally ripped the right arm off the stunned Assassin. Another round afterwards splattered the servant's brain deep into the kitchen, before he too expired in a shower of golden dust.

" _Die Königin befiehlt deinen Tod_ , _du heidnisches SchweinI_ ," Helmuth spat from the floor of the foyer, before gingerly standing.

"Holy shit," Chulainn muttered after a minute of silence, gobsmacked, "The fuck is that thing powered by?"

" _Die Königin_?" Helmuth questioned, lifting the revolver up, ".454 Gilding rounds, why?"

"Servants are extremely hard to put down, and that's by servants themselves," Animusphere answered from her upstairs hiding place, "It would be next to impossible for a human weapon to kill one, even if it were the weakest kind, like an Assassin."

Shuten huffed from the front door, "That Assassin was incredibly weak, even by Assassin standards. I'm surprised that he managed to survive in a fight with me for that long, even with him keeping mostly out of my range."

"So, I got lucky?" Helmuth asked, nodding at Hertzog as she and Animusphere made their way down from the second floor.

"Extremely."

" _Gutt_ , now there's two less to worry about then."

"Yes," Hertzog added, glancing between the ragtag group, "so I figure now would be a good time to finish this whole shitshow. We've managed to get those civilians safe, we're slightly rested, and we've taken care of two enemies. Now, I'm all for adventures, but I'd rather get this over with. Caster?"

After a moment, Chulainn groaned, "Alright fine, let's go see an Archer about a Saber then."

Nobody gave Helmuth a second look as he stayed behind, staring at where Rider had been. He shook himself, before following after his allies. No use thinking now, they had a fight to finish.

And his lit pipe still rested between his teeth, while a fuchsia piece of cloth was quickly hidden in his breast pocket.

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The man grimaced.

Another failure by the others then. Failures he had to report to his King, although he was pretty sure she already knew. The loss of Assassin would've been manageable, but both he and Rider? Unacceptable.

And with Lancer already disposed of by Caster before those humans even showed up, as well as Berserker being a non-combatant basically, he was now the last line of defense for his King.

Damnit, things were progressing too quickly. He still hadn't found a way to shake off this gnawing corruption, nor a way to deal with that man yet.

Unless…

That'd have to work.

Allowing a smile to cross his face, he waited, watching from atop the temple roof. They'd come to him anyways, why not pull a page from himself and enlist them?

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"So, who exactly should we be expecting to face?"

This came from Hertzog, who directed the question directly at Cu Chulainn as the group progress through the ruins of Fuyuki.

"Well, with Assassin and Rider out of the way, I guess we only got to deal with Saber and her lapdog," the druid replied, resting his staff on his shoulders as they walked.

"Only two? What about Lancer, or Berserker?" Animusphere asked, looking up from her communications with Chaldea.

"Well little lady, that's rather easy to explain," Chulainn replied, grinning, "I took care of Lancer before you all got here. He was an easy small fry, and I managed to bait him. Now, Berserker on the other hand is still kicking about, but I don't think we have to worry about him."

Hertzog perked up, "And why's that?"

"Simple, he won't bother us as long as we don't get anywhere near him. And trust me, we aren't going near that big fucker anytime soon. And we should count ourselves lucky on that. That bastard wouldn't go down even if you managed to get a killing blow into him; he'd just get right back up to fuck your day."

"Say, speaking of fucked days…" Helmuth began from the front of the group, having elected – read: lost the draw – to take point, "How big would you say this Berserker is? About seven feet tall and made of pure muscle?"

"Yeah, why?"

"He's at the end of the street," Helmuth pointed.

And yes, there he was. At the end of the street, staring them all down.

At seven feet tall, and quite possibly five hundred pounds of pure, solid muscle, the corrupt servant stared at them. He was big, to put it lightly, and the dark grey colour of his skin tone, blood red eyes, and wild hair gave off an air of anger, and pure unfiltered hatred – pointed directly at them all. It didn't help that at his side was a massive slab of stone with a handle, which Helmuth assumed was the giant's weapon for choice. Behind him, the others remained stock still, just as he was, as they waited for their inevitable death.

But it never came. Rather, Berserker exhaled, and turned, leaving the stunned group completely alone.

The group remained motionless for another minute and a half, before Helmuth spoke.

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I think I've had enough brown alerts for today. What say you that we just continue on, pretend that meeting never happened, and when we get home pray to every single deity that exists to thank them that we weren't absolutely slaughter. Because I think I speak for all of us when I say that man was all muscle."

"Agreed."

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The temple. The temple atop like, a bajillion stairs. That's where the last two enemies were supposed to be, and if what Romani said was true, the Holy Grail that was causing this singularity. Finally, they were on the last leg of their journey.

The temple complex was something interesting in of itself. Several small buildings, and the large temple itself all along a wide lane that offered only a single lane of approach. A damn good spot for a machinegun, or a sniper. And that's what they were basically dealing with. Archer stood on top of the temple at the end of that approach, bow hanging listlessly at his side. At any point he could've murdered them on their way up to the temple, but it seemed Archer had some form of sportsmanship at least, as he had waited for Helmuth to plant his foot just over the threshold of the main gate before blasting them with a red arrow.

Now they just had to take care of this prick, before moving on to Saber.

"So, care explain this to me again?" Helmuth yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice as he peeked from around the arch of the main gate. "Because I think I had a wad of _Pferdemist_ stuck in my ear!"

Across the courtyard, Archer yelled back. "I already told you! None shall pass through that gate! My King demands it!"

"Yeah, that's what I thought you said," Helmuth murmured, before turning his attention back to the group, "So, Hertzog? Caster? Hell, Romani? Any ideas?"

~ _From what I can tell of the topography of the area,_ ~ Came Romani's voice, echoing through the hologram that had shimmered into view from Fujimaru's wrist communicator, ~ _There's at least two point of entrances to the cavern that holds the Grail. The first one is the most direct, the one in front of you, while the other will take time that we don't have._ ~

"So, what you're suggesting is that we conduct a full-frontal assault?! Are you mad Archiman!?" Animusphere yelled, causing the cowardly doctor to shriek.

~ _No, no! I'm just saying that's the only way you have!_ ~ He explained, waving his arms. ~ _I mean, only Archer is there, and he can't fight everyone at once, can he?_ ~

"If we were to set up a distraction," Hertzog interjected, "say a smokescreen, or something to take his eyes from the group as a whole, then we could slip past him. I mean, we have enough people to do that."

"So, what're you suggesting then Miss?" Chulainn asked, leaning on his staff, "Because I'm itching for a fight really, and that bastard could give me a damn good one."

"I'm suggesting we split our forces," she explained, looking about the group. "We've got seven of us, three servants and four humans. We'll need at least two servants to fight Saber, so this could work. Helmuth, you, Chulainn, and Animusphere will have to distract him, while Douji, Kyrelight, Fujimaru, and I sneak past."

Helmuth grimaced, while Animusphere paled considerably.

"Uh, no way!" She exclaimed, stammering, "I'm not going to fight a servant, are you kidding me! I'll get killed! I – I have to stick with Mash and Fujimaru, to make sure they know what they're doing!"

" _Gott im Himmel_ , fine," Hertzog replied, shaking her head. "Sorry Helmuth, it's you and Chulainn against that guy then."

Helmuth sighed, casting a glance towards Chulainn, before looking back at Hertzog. "Fine, lemme grab your sniper then. This'll be a battle of range, and my weapons don't work that well at long distances. Fuck it, we might as well take some time to get ready anyways, right?"

Hertzog shrugged before unslinging the marksman rifle she had picked up from the supply cache earlier. "Might as well, _ja_."

Grabbing the rifle from Hertzog, Helmuth turned to Animusphere as the group settled about checking themselves over before what could be the final battle.

" _Direktor_ Animusphere," he began lowly, reaching into his rucksack. "Here, I have something to give you, could help."

The Director looked up, still quite pale, as Helmuth withdrew Muhlkampfs ARL that he had scavenged at the beginning of the day.

"What… What is that?" She asked, looking it over as Helmuth handed it to her.

"It's something the scientists back home cooked up," he explained, "They call it the 'Active Relay Locator', or something along those lines. Look, all you need to know is that if you truly think you're going to die, like, one hundred percent, you stab that thing into your chest, and press the plunger here. It'll activate the device and send you to my world. Think of it as a failsafe, ok?"

"Why would you give this to me?"

"Well, you're the Director of Chaldea, right?" He replied sheepishly, "The death of a leader is always a moral killer. It'd be better to have you alive and safe somewhere, rather than dead, right?"

"I… Yes." She sniffed, looking away, "Thank you."

Helmuth smiled, "Think nothing of it. Now, let's get this done."

He turned back, heading back to the gate. It was now or never.

Taking his place next to Caster, he looked behind him.

Behind him, in groups of two, were Shuten, Kyrelight, Fujimaru, Hertzog, and finally Animusphere. Hertzog flashed him a thumbs up from where she was, slightly hidden behind Kyrelight's massive shield, and Helmuth grasped at the smoke grenades at his webbing.

Now or never.

Nodding to Caster, he pulled the pins on all four canisters, tossing the first one just inside the gate. Waiting for the putt of the canister smoking up, he and Chulainn sprinted forward, Helmtuh throwing more canisters ahead of them, obscuring their vision as the group made their way into the compound. Behind them, the five others were sneaking around the inner side of the wall, Hertzog popping her own smoke to cover their flank around Archer's position as they made their way to the cave.

A whistle sounded overhead, and Helmuth flopped prone.

A bang a second later, and a shower of dirt, told him that Archer had just missed Chulainn and him by a few inches. Damn he was good.

Getting back up, he rushed into the nearest temple building, taking cover behind a halfwall to catch his breath. Gripping his rifle, he made no move to peek as the smoke dissipated. With luck, Hertzog and the others had managed to get to the cavern undetected, and it was now just Caster and he verses Archer.

Sneaking quietly, he winced as the whistle and detonation of another arrow sounded, father in the complex. Hopefully that hadn't been them. He couldn't find Chulainn, which meant – hopefully – the blue-haired druid was the one that was engaging Archer, but he couldn't be sure.

 _Verdammt_ , he needed to get a better vantage point for this to work. The first time had been luck, sure, but he was going to make sure it wasn't luck this time around.

The rifle he gripped was no mere rifle. It was the G98k, a bolt-action rifle chambered for the 7.92mm _Lange_ round that was the standard round for the Yytusche military. A weapon like this – one that had over a hundred years of military service – was something special. It was a first-pick for Yytuskian snipers and marksmen, both for its exceptional range and ballistics, and its ruggedness. And hell, with an 8x optic, one could sufficiently hit a target out past a kilometer if need be.

Now, Helmuth wasn't a marksman, nor a sniper – there were surprisingly differences between the two – but he was still a skilled shooter. He just needed to make an opening for Caster to get Archer, and be done with it all.

And that would be easy, if the two weren't flinging fireballs and explosive arrows around like drunken punches at the local bar.

~ _Helmuth, Helmuth! Do you read?_ ~ Hertzog's voice rang, out of breath.

"Copy Hertzog, you okay?"

~ _Roger, we've managed to get into the cavern unseen. Thanks for the distraction._ ~

"No worries," Helmuth replied, slipping out from his cover to some shrubbery, "Glad to be of service."

~ _I'll keep you posted on how we're doing, but for now we'll keep radio silence._ ~ Hertzog explained as Helmuth dove into a ruined building. ~ _We don't want to alert the enemy if we get close. Hertzog out._ ~

"Roger that Hertzog," Helmuth hissed. " _Ich wünsche dir viel Glück_."

He needed a higher vantage, somewhere with enough cover to fire from. The building he ducked into had had a second floor, although it appeared that half of it was missing due to the ongoing combat between Archer and Chulainn. Perhaps he could make use of it.

Groaning as he lifted himself up from some rubble and through a hole in the floor, he grinned as he spotted an opening wide enough to slip the barrel of the G98k through, as well as have enough room for the telescopic sight as well. Laying himself down flat, and hiding in the shadows, he peered through the rifle's sight to the outside. Now all he needed to do was be patient and wait for Archer to fill his sights.

More explosions rattled the building. Damn, it was like a warzone out there. Fast movement caught his eye, and through the scope he saw Chulainn land on the roof of an undemolished building farther off, facing his way. A split second later, Archer landed, much closer, but with his back turned. Perfect.

He had only a split second to do this, and so he exhaled. Putting the crosshairs directly on Archer's back, he gently squeezed the trigger.

The rifle barked, punching Helmuth's shoulder as it did so. In the split second that it had, it rushed towards Archer who, at the last possible second, twisted his upper body to dodge. The bullet merely grazed his shoulder as he turned, but it had done its work.

As Helmuth quickly vacated his spot after firing, Chulainn's cast bolt of fire smacked into Archer, throwing him from the roof.

Racking the bolt as he exited the building in a dead sprint, Helmuth slid into another piece of cover as Archer stood in the middle of the pavilion. Caster, surprisingly, did the same, jumping down from his roof to stare at the enemy servant.

Helmuth raised his rifle.

"Hey kid," Cu called out, keeping his eyes on Archer, "You can get going. Go help out the others, I'm good here."

Helmuth paused. He wasn't serious, was he?

Caster merely kept staring at Archer, before speaking again. "Come on man, a two-on-one fight just isn't fair, so go on. I got this."

"You've got to be kidding me," Helmuth whispered to himself, before sneaking off, keeping his cover between himself and Archer as he made his way to the cave.

When he was safely standing at the entrance to the place, only then did he yell. " _Viel Glück_ , _du verrückter Bastard_!"

And the second he did so, explosions once more rang out, and Helmuth charged into the cave that housed the Holy Grail.

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The scene he found when he entered the antechamber was something of chaos.

The chamber was massive, and lit by an eerie purple glow that was reflecting off the roof of the cave from a large rockwall, some hundred meters into the cavern.

Hiding behind a rocky outcropping were Fujimaru, Animusphere, and Hertzog. Hertzog had been wounded, considering the bandages wrapped around her chest, while Animusphere tended to her. Fujimaru, on the other hand, was watching the battle in front of them play out, a look of fear on his face.

The fight was interesting, as Shuten Douji and Kyrelight were parring and attacking a woman wielding a black sword. She was interesting to look at, wearing a black dress with pitch black bits of armour covering her forearms and chest. The dress didn't impede her movements at all, as each swing she made cut dark beams of energy into the ground, or were reflected off Kyrelight's shield. Judging by the cuts in the ground, they had been at it for a while.

He glanced towards Hertzog. He didn't know how injured she was, but still, priority one was that servant: Saber.

Kneeling into a crouch, he raised his sniper once more, and fired at the Servant, who had been parried back by Kyrelight.

The bark of the rifle echoed just as loud as the clangs of steel through the cavern, and Helmuth squinted as Saber merely raised her blade and fucking hit the bullet away from her.

"So, yet another worm crawls out of the woodwork, hm?" Her regal voice called out, turning her attention that was hidden behind some sort of face guard to Helmuth. "You would dare disobey a King?"

"First off," Helmuth began, lowering the G98k, "I'm no worm. Second, and more importantly: _ihr seid nicht mein Kaiser_."

"Very well then," she replied, entirely disinterested, before she turned her interest back to Kyrelight and Shuten, "I shall enjoy it as I remove the flesh from your bones once I am finished with these weak servants of yours."

All the luck to you, Helmuth thought as he quickly made his way over to Fujimaru.

Sliding behind the rock, he looked at the young man, and Animusphere.

"How is she?" He asked, motioning to Hertzog, "And what happened?"

"She's okay, for now," Fujimaru answered, keeping his eyes on the battle, "She was the first one Saber attacked, and she managed to get her arm. Director stabilized her with your medical stuff, and I stuck with morphine like she asked, but she's gone comatose. As it stands, I think only Mash and Assassin have a good chance to finish Saber. What happened to Caster?"

"As far as I can tell," Helmut said, "he's still fighting Archer. He wanted a one-on-one, so he told me to take off. Do we know where the Grail is?"

~ _Apparently, it's within Saber herself._ ~ Supplied Romani, ~ _So we'd have to defeat her to gain it, but that'd be hard to do…_ ~

"What about their Noble Phantasms?" Animusphere asked, "Surely Assassin could use hers? Fujimaru! Why haven't you asked her to use it yet?!"

"I don't even know what that is!" The young man replied angrily, "How in the Hell could I ask her to use it if I didn't know what it was?"

" _Gott_ , give me strength…" Helmuth muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just fucking yell it man! Should be good enough!"

Fujimaru blanched. "R-Right! Assassin! Er, use your Noble Phantasm to defeat Saber! Please?"

"Thought you'd never ask, Master!" The demon laughed, before taking a sip from her wine cup.

Helmuth stared in slight amazement as a cloud of energy rose from the petite servant, who had taken position behind Kyrelight.

Sighing in delight as she finished sipping, she then lifted Kyrelight up by the nape of her neck while pouring the remainder of her wine onto the rock floor below, which blossomed into a rainbow of colours. Almost blinded at the sight, the group of humans watched in amazement as the puddle grew and grew, almost encompassing the entirety of the cavern floor.

Saber tried to jump out of the way of the quickly spreading liquid, but Helmuth stopped her by firing at her with his rifle, forcing her to try and rush both Kyrelight and Shuten.

With a burst of energy, she made it about halfway to the two, before Shuten shouted out " _Senshibankou_ – _Shinpen Ki Doku_!" and the colourful wine exploded into even brighter brilliance. Saber let out a guttural scream as she fell face first into the liquid, writhing on the stone floor. Any attempt by her to stand was futile, as she just merely fell back down limply.

Helmuth grimaced. Whatever that stuff was, it was painful.

Pity wormed its way up into his chest, and he raised his rifle. It barked once more, and Saber's pitiful thrashing was stopped as she exploded into a shower of golden dust. As soon as she was gone, Shuten waved her hand, and the wine disappeared from the floor.

A small, sparkling chalice lay where Saber had once been, and Helmuth heard Romani gasp as he made his way over to it.

~ _The Grail! You guys did it!_ ~ He exclaimed happily, before pausing, confused. ~ _But, why am I still getting signals that the Singularity isn't collapsing? Something else is powering it! Hey, watch out! Somethings coming!_ ~

Helmuth paid him no mind, as he stowed the Grail into his rucksack, resting the rifle on his shoulder. He looked over to Shuten and gave her a thumbs up. Before he could congratulate either her or Kyrelight, a slow clapping filled the cavern.

Behind him, Animusphere screamed. "Lev! You're okay!"

From atop the rockwall in front of them stood a man. He was dressed in a green overcoat with black fur lining the cuffs and lapels, a matching top hat, and black pants and boots. His curly hair cascaded down the front of the overcoat, and he smiled warmly down at the group.

"Ah, how nice it is to see you all, Olga, Mash, Master 48, and is that Romani I hear?" He began, ignoring Animusphere as she started blubbering about how everything had gone wrong so far, and how he could fix it. "My, my, I wish I could truly say that it is nice to see you all here, ruining my plans, but then again I didn't expect you to survive. After all, those bombs were meant to kill everyone at Chaldea, but obviously not."

" _Was_ …?" Helmuth muttered as the man's smile turned sinister.

"Yes, how could I expect it?! Was it due to my own fault?! Romani, you were supposed to be in the control room, and yet you never arrived! I had hoped that another blast would get you, but it seems that I was wrong in that regard! And you, Candidate 48! You weren't even supposed to be here! You were meant to have been locked out of the Rayshift room, and yet!" He yelled madly, before turning his attention to Helmuth. "And yet! There are even more problems that not even my King could have foreseen! Intruders from another world! Did the Wizard of the Second Magics put you up to this?! In an attempt to stop my King's work!?"

"It matters not!" He continued, calming himself. "It matters not. Even with you all surviving, you can't stop what's coming. None of you can."

~ _What do you mean Lev…?_ ~ Romani asked cautiously, while Fujimaru tried to hold Animusphere back from running towards the man.

"What I mean, Doctor Romani," Lev began, "Is that your work is all for naught."

There came a gasp from Romani, as what best could be described as a rip in space folded open in a shower of gold beside Lev, showing a blood red orb held in a group of rotating rings.

"Is that… Chaldea?" Kyrelight asked from beside Helmuth.

~ _This should be impossible!_ ~ Romani yelled, ~ _There's a tear in the space beside the CHALDEAS system! My God, is that…?_ ~

"Correct Dr. Romani!" Lev yelled madly, as he pointed to Animusphere, "Take a good, hard look at SHEBA Olga! Look at what has become of your collective future thanks to your actions! Humanity has no future!"

~ _He's right! SHEBA is reading no human life past 2016, what is this?!_ ~

A scream from behind Helmuth tore his attention away from the hole in space/time, and he gawked as Animusphere steadily rose into the air like magic.

"Now then, poor, poor, Olga," the madman began, cackling as she drifted ever closer to the rip, "Since you love your beloved Chaldeas so much, would you not care to join it? After all, you body already rest there!"

" _WAS_!?" Helmuth yelled out as the Director of Chaldea floated above him.

"Oh yes, it's a shame that you're here," the man rambled on, "After all, the bomb did go off directly under your feet where I planted it. I believe the Rayshift brought your spirit here, but I can assure you, you will expire when you return home. So why not let you join Chaldeas, at the most fundamental level?"

Thinking fast as she drifted ever closer to the glowing orb on the other side, Helmuth called out to her.

"ANIMUSPHERE! The ARL! Use it!"

She flailed for a second, before hearing his words and grabbing the battery-like object. With a grunt, she stabbed it into her chest, before pressing the plunger down. To everyone's surprise, however, the device gave a loud beep, flashed green, and fazed away in a flash of blue light – with Olga still where she was, floating ever closer with every passing second.

" _Mein Gott_ …"

"No, nooooo!" She yelled, thrashing wildly now as she passed through the portal, "Lev, please! I can't die! I haven't done anything meaningful with my life! I was supposed to do great things! It can't end like this, please! Nononononono-!"

Her head snapped back, seconds before her body came into contact with SHEBA, and her body fell limp. The distinct bark of the _Mitternachtskönigin_ rang throughout the cavern, and everyone's attention turned from the Director's body to Helmuth, who held the revolver firmly in his grip.

Olga Marie Animusphere, Director of Chaldeas, had been mercy-killed by Helmuth's hand.

"Oh, well that's disappointing." Lev commented, closing the rip in space. "Here I thought I was going to enjoy the sounds of her screams as she touched the molten core of SHEBA, and you rip it away from me."

Another shot rang, only this time the round merely passed through the madman with no indication that it ever hit him.

"Tsk tsk, is that any way to behave human?"

Helmuth seethed. "My name is Helmuth von Trotha _schwein_ , learn it. Because the next time I see you, I will rip your entrails out, rend the flesh from your bones, and USE YOUR SKULL AS A SOUPBOWL! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?"

The man merely laughed. "I like your enthusiasm, human. Know this! I am Lev Laniur Flaros! 56th Demon Pillar of my King! The next time we see each other, we will fight!"

Helmuth fired again, only for the man to fade away. The next second, the cavern began to shake, sending fragments of stone down.

~ _What?! The Singularity is destabilizing! Hold tight, we'll get you out of there!_ ~ Romani announced the second after Flaros disappeared.

Helmuth cursed, ripping his wrist computer off and tossing it to Fujimaru.

"Hold on to that! We'll be able to find you from our world if you do!" He yelled, before calling out to ben Sherry. "Sherry! Pickup needed for myself and Hertzog, now!"

~ _Roger that Operative! Teleportation in five seconds!_ ~

"Got it! Hey, Fujimaru!"

" _Hai!_ "

" _Möge der Echtkaiser auf Ihren sicheren Reisen lächeln_!"

Helmuth heard no response as the familiar flash of light and knives filled his being.

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 **Holy cow, that was… A lot.**

 **Like, not only was that a lot of words for me to write, but damn it was a lot to unpack.**

 **Sure, the fights with Rider and Assassin** ** _might_** **be rushed, but like Helmuth said, he got extremely lucky. Headshots will kill basically anything with a brain, and .454 caliber is no joke either. Plus Hassan of the Cursed Arms is literally the weakest servant. His only saving grace is his Noble Phantasm, which he needs to get close to use.**

 **What happened to Archer and Cu Chulainn? Well, the fight goes the same as in the game, there's just no one there to witness it and he doesn't get there before Saber gets wrecked by Shuten's NP. Which is also OP, but is an AoE type.**

 **Now though… Now what? What's going to happen with Helmuth? Why didn't the ARL work properly on Olga Marie? Was it because she was just a soul?**

 **Only I know.**

 **So, once again, read and review, leave a comment please, and if you haven't already, follow for more!**

 **See ya!**


	8. Kapitel-VIII Neu anfangen

**Well howdy.**

 **More and more people are jumping on the follower count, which is pretty nice. Thanks. And now that we're** ** _finally_** **out of the Fuyuki Singularity – which I hope didn't come off as rushed at all – we can get some more of Helmuth's world connected to this universe's Chaldea. This chapter will be focusing on the injuries sustained by Helmuth and Hertzog, as well how the Arcadius Project works. The veil won't be entirely lifted, of course, but some understanding will be reached by Helmuth.**

 **Also, sorry for such the long wait. I know I'd said that I'd be putting a chapter out every week, but life managed to kick me in the nuts for like, the fourteenth time this year. Depression was a major writing block this month. And plus, ya know, the holidays showed up. So, I am a bit sorry about that.**

 **Oh yeah, and the ARL thing with Director Animusphere. That'll be explained as well.**

 **But now, reviews!**

 **To the Guest: Thanks! I'm happy that you're enjoying my work! I felt that, you know, after like 7 years of work on Helmuth's world of Terra Solis, I felt I could get some shenanigans going. Hope you keep enjoying!**

 **To Slayer-410: Welcome back, thanks for another review. And yeah, I totally agree with the Servant's Resistance thing. I mean, it works well enough for a gacha game like F/GO, but in a real-life scenario it just… Wouldn't make sense, right? Oh, and you're going to love some of the things I have planned for dimensional interconnectivity between Terra Solis and Chaldea. Keep an eye out!**

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"What did you expect?" – Talking

'A war like no other?' – Thought

" _Der Teufel selbst_?" – Very bad Google Translate, or emphasis on speech

' _Or just a bad dream_?' – Written word

~ _Maybe it was nothing at all._ ~ – Radio Chatter

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Where was he?

This place was… empty. A white expanse. He couldn't hear a thing. He could move his limbs, he could feel those. The movements of his head as it swivelled this way and that. The dull pain on the cuts and bruises that adorned his body. All of these he felt. The place around him? He couldn't feel that.

It was like this place was… An emptiness between where he needed to be, and where he came from. Completely formless.

And he was the only one here.

His scrambled brain reached for anything it could in his memories.

He had been with someone, he was sure of that. An ally, wounded in battle. A battle he couldn't recall, but judging from the wounds he felt along his body it was a taxing battle nonetheless. And then he had…

He had…

 _Verdammt_.

Blankness.

That damned pins again, only they were… knives…?

The world warped around him, the blank, white expanse morphing into bright lights that forced him to close his eyes, lest he go blind.

He fell. Hell, he felt like he was falling for quite sometime. And then he wasn't.

He landed, splashing into something, a liquid that was equal parts putrid and vile smelling to him. Gathering himself, he wiped his face of the liquid, and opened his eyes.

He gagged.

 _Blut._ A pool of it. Foul, vile, putrid smelling _blut_ that assaulted his senses tenfold. Surrounding behind and in front of him were strange, hexagonal-shaped stalagmites, and to his left and right were sheer expanses of nothingness. All of this was centered around an odd-looking device. He stepped closer, examining it.

 _Ubersprengen_ , it read in bold acrylic.

"Huh," he whispered to himself, "'Flashover', eh? Odd name choice."

He glanced around, and then back towards the machine. Walking around it, he shrugged, before unholstering his sidearm.

"Wouldn't hurt to try it, I suppose…" He muttered, placing the weapon onto the tray on the top of the machine.

Looking around it, he hummed in satisfaction upon seeing a lever, sticking out just below the tray on the other side of the machine. Giving it a might throw, he grinned as it whirred to life, raising an eyebrow in surprise as the pistol rose in the air, suspended by two beams of light emanating from either end of the tray. Staring in amazement, he watched as the beams slowly met, connecting with the gun, before a large clunk echoed from the machine. The pistol remained floating in midair as the beams disappeared, and he gently reached forward to grab it.

It weighed the same, not that he had been expecting the weight to change at all, honestly. The only differences he could see were to the finish on the weapon. Instead of the deep blued that usually dominated the steel of the revolver, it was a weird, shimmering blue/white colouring to it, that shone differently in the light.

"Odd…" he murmured, inspecting the weapon's gleam. " _Sehr merkwürdig_ …"

Another flash exploded behind his eyes had him quickly holstering the revolver, before he slipped into nothingness once more…

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A soft, steady beep – that of a heart monitor – greeted his ears when he awoke once more. He was in a hospital, that was for certain, but he couldn't remember how he had gotten there in the slightest. Bandages were wrapped around his head, and his eyes, as well as other key points on his body. Points where he remembered being hurt. He moved to unwrap his eyes, before pain blossomed from his left eye socket, and he shifted uncomfortably in place with a groan.

"Operative von Trotha?" A voice asked through the haze, "Are you awake?"

With a groan, Helmuth managed to prop himself up, turning his head towards the voice.

"Ahavniel?" He asked, "I'm back in GKI?"

"Yeah, the hospital wing," Ahavniel ben Sherry, the technician who had kept contact with Helmuth and Hertzog alive throughout their mission, answered with a smile. "You guys had us worried there for a hot minute. Here, lemme get those bandages outta your eyes, just don't open them. Doctor's said you gotta give'em time to adjust."

"Time to adjust…?" Helmuth asked groggily as ben Sherry slowly unwrapped the bandages. "Why…?"

Ben Sherry hummed, "Well, the doc said it was something about the difference in light levels between here and that dimensional singularity you and Hertzog were in. You guys both were knocked out when you got here, and you'd been operating in low light level area for a while. You also sustained a few blows to the head, _Herr_ von Trotha, so that is also a factor."

Helmuth winced as the bandages were fully removed from his face, the light from the florescent lights above piercing through his eyelids. Slowly, ever so slowly, he opened his eyes, blinking the brightness away from his sight, before he settled on a slightly disturbing sight.

Or rather, lack thereof.

"Ahvaniel…?" He murmured softly, silently praying in the back of the mind that he was wrong, "Why can't I see to the left…?"

Ben Sherry flushed red, looking away. "Ahrm… Well…"

The poor techie was saved, as Dr. Schiessman herself entered the wing, glancing around before spotting – and briskly walking towards – Helmuth and ben Sherry. She had, surprisingly, forgone her usual lab coat, and just had her turtleneck and khakis on. She quickly made her way over to the two men, pulling up a seat from an empty patient bedside, and placed herself to Helmuth's left – ironically enough.

"Helmuth, good to see you awake. How are you?"

"Funny you should mention how good it is to see me, _Frau_ Doctor," he snarked in response, motioning to the left side of his face, "considering I can't see from this side."

"Ah," came her intelligent response, "Technician Ahvaniel hasn't explained it to you yet?"

"I, uh, I was trying to get to that gently, Doctor." Ahvaniel explained sheepishly, before he turned back to Helmuth. "Helmuth, uh, quite simply you've lost that eye. I can't really explain it any other way."

Helmuth gaped.

"Wait wait, before you get mad, let me explain!" Ahvaniel rushed, holding his hands up, "The Arcadia Project is still very much a, uh, a beta test. A whole bunch of things are unknown variables when the project is engaged, and not a lot of people know what'll happen if even the smallest thing gets missed in the equation. The means of teleportation is still an ever-distant idea, and Hell, I barely understand how it works myself, and I've been a part of the project since a year after it started!"

Pausing to wet his lips, he glanced to Schiessman, before continuing.

"Listen closely Helmuth, because this is some confidential stuff. The kind of stuff that'll get the three of us killed if anyone found out." He explained, glancing around the ward nervously. "I've looked over the notes about this thing, Arcadia uses a type of energy that's never been seen before on the planet. It, for a lack of better terms, breaks things. It breaks things and makes them different in different ways. So far, we're only using the energy – _Geistkraft_ – to power Arcadia, nothing else."

Helmuth groaned, cricking his neck, "Spirit power? Really?"

"Yes, really, there's reasons we call it that. Now, _geistkraft_ works as a sort of bridge between the fabrics of reality, and somewhere else. Project Arcadia harnesses that energy, and uses it to rip people from our world and allows them to be displaced elsewhere. Other dimensions."

"Come on Ahvaniel, what're you getting at here?"

"Right, I'm getting there Helmuth, no worries," Ahvaniel responded, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "Now, our ability to use _geistkraft_ as an interdimensional teleportation system hinges greatly on our ability to, uh, calculate, the movement of both the energy and things being moved. Basically, we need time to calculate – properly – for a safe transport. What occurred with you and Elma was that you gave us five seconds to triangulate your position and get you back here. Five seconds. Usually we have a good thirty. Anyways, with a rushed equation like that, sometimes things happen. Thankfully nothing happened with Elma, but uh, with you…?"

"I lost my eye."

" _Ja_. The dimensional warp that was used to bring you and Elma back here caused you to lose your eye."

Here Ahvaniel paused, flinching even, as he seemed to remember yet another piece of important information. Fidgeting once again, he ran a hand through his hair, before he spoke once again, even lower.

"We, uh, we also lost you. For a bit there." At Helmuth's blank stare, he continued, sputtering awkwardly as he tried to explain, "Like, the dimensional warping technique isn't perfected, so sometimes – it's an incredibly slim chance – sometimes we, uh… Sometimeswelosecontactwiththingsthatgothrough!"

Helmuth stared blankly at the technician, slowly taking in his appearance as his brain tried to process what had just been said. Truth be told, Ahvaniel ben Sherry wasn't what Helmuth had been expecting when he had heard the young man's nasally voice over the radio.

Clad in a simple lab coat, black tee shirt, and blue jeans, one thing was abundantly clear: Ahvaniel was tall. Even though he was sitting, Helmuth guessed he was at least six and a half feet tall, which was quite uncommon in modern times. The last person that had been that tall in Yytuskian had been Kaiser Fredrich the Fourth, the father of the current Kaiser, Ottokar the Third. Sandy blonde hair, slick with grease that looked like he hadn't showered in several days, hung loosely in front of his face, and down his back in a ponytail. Wireframe glasses hide a pair of pale blue eyes, whose gaze darted around the room. And to even it off, the young man was fidgeting with the holy relic tied to his wrist.

The Cross of the Holy Emperor. _Das Kreuz des Echtkaiser_. A sure-fire sign that the wearer was a follower of the Holy Order.

"Helmuth?" Dr. Schiessman asked quietly.

"Sorry," he hummed in response, "I was just… this is a lot to take in."

"Understandable. It's not often that one gets lost in space and time for a half, nor lose an eyeball at the same time." Dr. Schiessman replied, nonchalantly.

"I'm sorry, what?"

Ahvaniel squeaked. "A-a half hour. You were MIA for a full half hour after we pulled you and Elma out of the Singularity."

Helmuth could only look blankly at two, before slumping back down in the hospital bed.

A half hour. He had – for all intensive purposes – been missing from this existence for a whole thirty minutes. Where had he been? What had he seen? He closed his eyes, trying to remember.

"Helmuth?"

"Hush, gimme a second, _bitte_."

He tried to think, to recall what had happened. He had bid farewell to Ritsuka Fujimaru and Mash, and had managed to secure teleportation with Hertzog's unconscious form as the cavern collapsed around them. There was the flash of light, the knives and pins, and then…

 _Blut und stahl_ …

More lights…

And then…?

His mind was foggy. Like a… Like a thick, blanketing fog that hid things that no mortal should experience. Something popped in his mind, abruptly. A campfire in the fog. There had been people around it, yes. He had met people in the fog, they warned him of the things out there, hadn't they? And then, he…

He…

With a blink, he opened his eyes – EYE, he reminded himself – and turned to Dr. Schiessman.

He pulled a blank. There was something he had forgot, or had been forced to forget, but after that bonfire he awoke here. He explained as much to the two.

"A campfire surrounded by fog?" Dr. Schiessman asked, perplexed. "I don't recall any after action reports mentioning anything like that."

Helmuth merely slumped further into the hospital bedding. "That's all I can remember, sorry. I wish we could keep this going, but I'm feeling sore and tired Doctor. I don't think I should try and force myself to remember these things."

Dr. Schiessman hummed, nodding towards Ahvaniel. "Fair enough. We should let you get your rest Helmuth, we'll need you in tip-top shape when you return to the help Chaldea out."

"I'll be returning?"

"Naturally. At the moment you're the only person on our active roster with information on the place, as well as with some ties to the people there." Dr. Schiessman explained. "You'll be back on the rotation at the weeks end."

"Even without my eye?"

"I can promise you you'll have a new one by the end of the month at the latest. Have a good rest Helmuth, you'll do just fine."

Helmuth merely grunted, cursing the woman as he laid his head back. The IV drip – and the painkillers pumping through him – slowly lulled him to sleep.

He could still smell the ashen stench of that damned fog…

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Three days later drew a pleasant surprise for Helmuth, who had finally been cleared for release from the special hospital down in the crater. As he had been lounging in his apartment, plucking away at his Bachmann II/L guitar, he had been startled by the sudden ringing of his doorbell, and – naturally confused – peered through the peephole.

Standing outside his homely little apartment were his father, his older brother Kilian, and his twin younger sisters Jutta and Bridgette. Throwing the door open with gusto, he was almost immediately beset by the twins, who launched themselves at him, hanging from his waist. With a laugh he hugged them, ushering them, his father, and his brother, into his apartment. Settling the two girls down, the hyper twins giggling, he settled himself down onto the couch in the living room, where he had been playing moments prior.

"Good to see you again father, Kilian," Helmuth greeted, watching the twins with a smile as they rounded the apartment, "What brings you and the twins?"

"Well, we heard about your eye, and Dad and I decided we should come visit. The twins announced they were coming the moment they heard you had been hurt, so we couldn't exactly leave them either." Kilian said with a grin before adding in a jab at both himself and Helmuth. "And oh my, seeing you now feels like looking in a mirror."

It was true, in a sense: Kilian, the second-born of the Von Trotha's, was missing his right eye compared to Helmuth's left one, although he was much more heavily scarred. The story behind his missing eye was much different then Helmuth losing his to interdimensional bullshit.

Five years before, the Yytusche-Talion Conflict broke out between Yytuskia and its northwestern neighbour, the Talion Union. Talion had – for several years before the whole thing cooked off – been trying to push the Yytuskian borders back off their own, which they had lost decades prior during the 1984 Revolution in Yytuskia. When talks broke down in early 2025, the Talion Union's dictatorship decided to take matters into its own hands, and funded a terrorist attack on the capital town of Mannerheim, Mannerheim, which was the province bordering Talion the closest. The attack – which targeted the town's nuclear powerplant – was both a success and a failure, due to the heroic actions of the guards on duty, as well as the three massive nuclear bunkers under the city, which had been completed a month prior. This attack forced the Yytuskian government, along with its allies Helvana and Ormata, to declare war on the Talion dictatorship, marking the official start of the conflict.

Kilian, who had been eighteen at the time and was still in his Compulsory Military Service (CompServ), had been pushed to the front. The 5'7" tall Von Trotha managed to survive the whole war, up until the Siege on Markus Creek, where the Talion government deployed a tactical nuclear weapon. It was, thankfully, shot down ten kilometers from the center of the city of Markus Creek, but the blast still slapped Kilian and the other troops in the city around quite a bit. It was here where he had lost his eye, after getting blown back by the shockwave that ripped through, when his glasses shattered and sliced his right eye. He returned home into welcome arms at the end of the conflict in 2028, and was now taking their uncles place as the treasurer of the Von Trotha fortunes.

And now he sat across from Helmuth, along with their father, wearing both his wireframe glasses, and the black eye patch that he wore over his right eye. He was dressed rather casually, blue jeans, a white tee shirt underneath an unzipped hoodie, and had managed to gel his chestnut brown hair off his face.

His father, on the other hand, wore a black, three-piece, pinstriped suit, similar to what mobsters would wear in the old-fashioned movies from the 40s and 50s.

"I'd be terrified if I looked in a mirror and looked like you," Helmuth bit back with a smile, "After all, I still have my roguishly good looks without my eye."

"Bah, chicks dig scars, you know that Helmuth." Was Kilian easy response.

The three of them shared a laugh, before the twins finally came back into the room from the bedroom.

" _Großer Bruder_! _Großer Bruder_!" the two sang, launching themselves onto either side of him, "Why didn't you tell us you were a secretary here?"

The two were eight years younger than Helmuth, thirteen-years-old, thus being much shorter than him too, at only 4'3" in height. Born just minutes apart from each other – Jutta was older by three minutes – the two sisters were identical twins, in almost every way, and were never far from one another. It was a running joke in the family that if you spotted one of the brunettes alone, the other was just around the corner. Their personalities were extremely similar as well, with Bridgette being the more hyper of the two.

"Ah, that's easy, _meine Kleinen_ ," Helmuth replied, poking both of them on the nose, "This is a super secret job I have here, for super secret reasons! So, I can't exactly blab about it all the time, could I?"

"You could've at least told us you were hurt," Jutta pouted, crossing her arms.

"My apologies, it's rather hard to write or call when one is in a medically induced coma," Helmuth jokingly replied. "Speaking of, how'd you guys know I got injured anyways?"

"My old friend, Ess Schiessman," Helmuth's father replied with a knowing grin, "She and I go way back, and I had her promise to give me weekly updates on you."

Helmuth made a face. "Weak."

"Yeah, well, how were we supposed to know you lost an eye due to some idiot scientist testing some top-secret device when you were trying to deliver documents?" Kilian said.

Helmuth sighed, hugging his sisters. "Fair enough point."

"So now that that's out of the way," Kilian began, "we're here for the day, so why don't you show us around the neighbourhood? Points of interest, and whatnot, eh?"

Helmuth gave another shrug. Why not? He had nothing better to do for the day.

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Another four days later – and a promise to his sisters that he'd have them over to visit sometime – Helmuth was back in the Arcadia building, standing outside the teleportation chambers.

He was dressed quite lax: combat boots, _feldgrau_ trousers, a white tee with a Fizz Soda logo emblazoned on the front, an unbuttoned M56 field tunic, and a M56 field cap perched on his head. Strapped underneath his left should was the _Mitternachtskönigin_ ¸ and under his right was his service pistol, while double strapped on his back were both the _Eberkönig_ and a G4 rifle. And finally, strapped to his right leg in its special holster was the P-15A, the elemental pistol that had managed to save his life against Rider back in Fuyuki. Set around him were ammunition cases, military-styled crates with equipment and food, a semi-permanent 'locator' pole that would be setup in Chaldea, a guitar case holding Helmuth's Bachmann II/L, and an amplifier for said guitar.

And now he was waiting for the all clear to go from Dr. Schiessman and Ahvaniel, who had been selected as his handler for future excursions. They, along with three others, were in the staging room to his left, discussing the operation to Chaldea, and hopefully the long-term problems they could work out and solve. It was all mumbojumbo that Helmuth didn't want to partake in, thus he waited instead, checking his baggage carefully before the trip.

And hadn't that been a hassle!

He had argued with Dr. Schiessman for half a day to get her to agree to allow him to take his guitar and amp. Her reasoning was that it'd be an unnecessary bring-along, tying Helmuth down in case of an incident. He responded with the fact that he'd only be using it on his downtime, or evening times when he wasn't doing anything of importance. Schiessman jabbed back, saying that he would be on duty the entire time, and that in the end she was still his superior. Helmuth merely hung a threat over her head: if I don't get my guitar, I'll tell my dad – Schiessman's close friend – that she lied to him about his job, and that he was, in fact, in a very dangerous line of work.

A low blow, sure, but she caved all the same.

Helmuth hummed to himself, scratching his nose. She really hadn't thought that he would do that, did she?

"Oi, is that you Helmuth?"

The shout came from down the hall, and Helmuth squinted his good eye. Was that…?

" _Bei den Göttern oben_!" Helmuth yelled back, "Is that you Elma?"

"You bet'cher ass it is!"

Whisking herself over at an alarming pace, the wheelchair-bound Elma Hertzog grinned manically as she gained speed towards the stunned Helmuth. Clad in a simple white shirt, and khaki slacks, the rainbow-haired _soldat_ laughed as she skidded to a stop, mere feet away from Helmuth.

"Good to see you're alive and kicking Helmuth! How's everything going? Holy cow, did you lose an eye?"

Helmuth merely shrugged, shaking his head at the bubbly woman. "Yeah, it's fine. Everything's alright, all things considered Hertzog. Gonna be heading out in few. But that's not important, what're you doing in a wheelchair?"

Elma blushed, chuckling awkwardly.

"W-well, it's funny," she began, trying to hide her left arm from his view, "not only did I, uh, lose my arm here, but I also broke my ankle. Doctor's say I'll be wheelchair bound for a couple weeks as it heals."

"I wouldn't exactly call that 'funny', Hertzog," Helmuth muttered, clucking his teeth, watching as his two-time battlebuddy wince, "but I am glad to see you alive and well. Truly. That was a pretty fucked up scenario we had to go through, and I'm happy we made it out alive."

"Not all of us…"

A silence grew between them, as Helmuth and Elma remembered their CO for the fateful mission, Erhardt Muhlkampf, and his sudden demise at the hands of Archer.

"… Some of us only made it out in a philosophical way too," Hertzog continued, after a pause.

Helmuth's face scrunched in confusion, "What?"

"Well, you remember Director Animusphere? She's here too."

"That's, that's impossible Elma," Helmuth explained, "I, I gave her mercy before she was killed. There's now way that she survived. Besides, her only chance, the ARL, didn't work."

"Oh no, it totally did though!" Hertzog exclaimed happily, "The doctors were just putting her in her new body just before I left! I managed to get her to tag along, although I think I lost her somewhere…"

"What the hell do you mean 'putting her in her new body'? She died, I killed her Hertzog!"

"Then what does that make me?"

Helmuth looked up from Hertzog to see one of GKI's many robots that made up the mechanized workforce of the scientific community. They were usually VI-powered hive bots, just steel skeletons programmed for repair and building work, but this one was different. There was an inflection to its robotic voice that bespoke a much higher intelligence than a simple worker bot. Plus the way it walked…

" _Nein_ ," Helmuth murmured softly, eye widening as realization dawned on him, "It can't be… Marie Animusphere…?"

"Correct!" The – now realized – skeletal body of the late-not-late Director of Chaldea answered, walking up to Helmuth and Elma.

"I have managed to cheat death, thanks to you." She spat, striding closer to the two, "Thanks to you, I am now a thankful resident of this world's hospital system. Thanks to you, I will eventually be able to get back to Chaldea and my rightful job as Director. However, thanks to you, my soul is now housed in this metal contraption! Thanks to you, I look like some freaky metal skeleton! Thanks to you, I will never know the feeling of food, or drink, ever again! And most importantly, thanks to you, I CAN NO LONGER PRODUCE MAGEKRAFT!"

She swung at Helmuth, slapping him across the face as he was too stunned by the revelation of her being alive to move. The slap tilted his head, shaking the cobwebs in his skull loose as he quickly returned his gaze to the skeletal form of Marie Animusphere.

"The ARL… It worked…?"

"Apparently so," Animusphere responded coldly, servos whirring as she clenched and unclenched her fists.

Helmuth stumbled over his words, too shocked to properly form sentences. He glanced at Hertzog, who only winced sympathetically. He was alone in this.

"D-Director, please understand, I had no idea that, that this is what would happen when you used the ARL…" He explained slowly, trying to calm the irate woman down, "I was under the impression that it acted as a miniature teleportation platform. I thought it'd whisk you away to safety, body intact. When it failed in the singularity, I though it was just a faulty device! You have to understand, I didn't mean for this to ever occur to you!"

There was a brief pause of silence between the two, Animusphere's yellow optics glaring at Helmuth as he anxiously twitched, waiting the stern Director's scolding. While still slightly shorter than him, the skeletal husk that Animusphere now inhabited still somehow managed to produce and air of importance and anger.

That anger slowly disappeared, however, and she deflated, sighing in a weird way through her vocal processors.

"It's alright," she murmured, "I understand that you were trying to help, Helmuth, and… Thank you."

"I, yeah, thanks Marie," Helmuth replied solemnly, "Sorry that you had to go out that way."

"I just, I can't believe Lev would do something like that," she hissed, clenching her fists in anger again, "After all that we've been through, he'd go and kill – no, murder staff at Chaldea? Murder me? Why would he do such a thing?"

Helmuth winced, scratching his arm. "I think," he began slowly, "That Lev was leading you guys on for a long time. The way he spoke back in the singularity, it sounded like he had been planning this for a long time, and something like that – placing bombs and such just to kill you – makes it sound like there's something bigger we're missing here. He spoke of serving a 'King', but I don't think it was the one that Miss Shuten managed to curb stomp. Someone much more sinister is at play here Director."

"But that's all speculation," Hertzog interjected, looking between the two, "We don't know for one hundred percent that this Lev was working for someone else. It could just be a diversion."

"That may be true… But still, we need to focus on the future and present." Helmuth agreed, nodding to Animusphere. "Director, Marie, when do you think the scientists will let you return?"

The robotic director shook her head with a huff, "I don't know. Those bastards aren't saying anything. I don't have a definite answer for you."

"Then I best not mention that you're alive for now," Helmuth mused, "Keep you a secret trump card in case things are really bad."

"Wait, you're going back?"

"Yeah, leaving with three others to set up a relay point," he explained, giving a small smile, "That's why I got so much equipment behind me. We'll be heading to Chaldea soon, set up a relay point between here and there, and hopefully manage to get Chaldea in tip-top shape for your return Marie. I'll be sure to tell Doctor Archiman and Fujimaru the good news about your wellbeing, if you'll allow me though."

"Denied," Dr. Schiessman announced as she entered to the trio's left, "Unfortunately Director Animusphere is still KIA there. Until she's at one hundred percent again, I'm not risking any breach of security."

Hertzog coughed. "Really Doctor? I'm sure that the news could at least be a small morale booster, and a show of good faith to them."

"Once again, denied. Or do you not remember what happened with D-003, Elma Hertzog?"

The retort bit into Hertzog, who flinched deeply. "My apologies Doctor."

"Nevertheless," Schiessman continued, turning her gaze to Helmuth, "I see you've kit up. Good. You'll be meeting the new recruits in the Hive. Try to keep them alive Helmuth, I'd rather not send home more letters to families. As for you, Hertzog, Director Animusphere, I'd suggest the two of you get back to the sickbay, before anyone learns of your 'escape', hm?"

There was a pause.

The trio glanced at each other as Dr. Schiessman walked off, uncertainty in their eyes. Quietly, Elma and Marie bade Helmuth good luck, and safe travels, before slipping away themselves. As the two slowly skulked away, Helmuth said nothing, merely waving as they looked back. He then gathered his gear, slipping silently into the Hive behind Schiessman. Another adventure awaited him, and he was going to need his wits about him once more.

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 **God, writer's block is such a dick.**

 **Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please remember to review, if you feel you need to. Have a good one!**


	9. Question For You

Hey,

So I don't know if anyone is still waiting on an update of this, but I obviously haven't been working on this in a while. So, as I sit here, I have a question.

Should I just rewrite this? I feel like I didn't put much effort into this, and I could be doing so much better in my writing. So all I'm asking is easy, just review this chapter with a YES or NO, and I'll figure it out okay?

Thanks.


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